FuturePlaces: The council-owned company driving regeneration

BCP Council’s deputy leader said there are £3billion worth of projects relating to empty sites and developable options.

Cllr Philip Broadhead said the recently formed urban regeneration company, named FuturePlaces, will attempt to solve some of the common pitfalls local authorities fall into when delivering major schemes.

He said there are “huge opportunities” across the conurbation but a different approach was needed to make them a reality.

“Frankly, councils are good at some things,” said Cllr Broadhead, portfolio holder for development, growth and regeneration.

Cllr Philip Broadhead

“They are good at collecting your bins and social care. They are not really very good at doing huge, major regeneration projects.

“That is why we decided to do something very different and create FuturePlaces, which is a mechanism as much as anything else.

“It is wholly owned by the council, so it is not an external company and that is important to know.”

He said: “Part of the central ethos is we have got the ability with all of these sites to do things in a connected, joined up way.

“The problem with traditional development is it is all about short-termism. If you are a property developer or you own a piece of land, you get planning permission, you then either develop it or sell it on and then it is done.

“There is absolutely no incentive for placemaking, for increased infrastructure and all that value creation because if you do that, it goes onto the developer next door.

“Because we have so much skin in the game now, we can have a really connected conversation. We have adopted the stewardship approach, which is all about value creation, long-term patient capital.”

The council has recruited Gail Mayhew, one of the lead commissioners for the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful commission, as the managing director of FuturePlaces.

Cllr Broadhead said this meant FuturePlaces had “the government’s go to person on how to do regeneration” leading the company.

He said an example of the joined up approach was the situation at Carters Quay in Poole.

The council is delivering 161 homes for rent, but with “extra effort” than the existing planning application on improving the public realm and adding more commercial units.

“It doesn’t actually increase the value of that development but we are going to be developing next door, it will increase the value of that and more importantly from a municipal point of view it lifts the whole place,” said Cllr Broahead.

“It is so obvious but it just doesn’t happen in the normal world because people don’t have the scale nor the incentive to do it at that level.

“Poundbury is the best example of stewardship. Now Poundbury properties are worth more than anywhere else, it is the place that people want to live because it is just so beautiful, it has been thought about.”

Poundbury

The company is up and running with a chief executive, chief operating officer and engagement director in place, along with finance and legal teams.

Cllr Broadhead, Cllr Drew Mellor, BCP Council leader, and the local authority’s chief executive Graham Farrant are currently the only directors on the board.

This was done as a “necessity” to set up the company, Cllr Broadhead said. He said Mr Farrant is expected to step down from the board when the senior team is finalised, while he and Cllr Mellor will remain but not in the role of chairman.

Asked about how FuturePlaces would be scrutinised, the deputy leader said: “It does have autonomy, deliberate autonomy, so it has the freedom to make the decisions that are much more experienced-driven, but it is still owned by the council.

“In order to give them that freedom but make sure we have got control, when we launched the business plan, we also set up a commissioning team and a commissioning plan.

“The idea is the council is still the ultimate decision maker. We commission FuturePlaces with what we want them to do, they then go away to do it and bring it back to the council.

“I have had a lot of opposition councillors say they want to sit on the board of FuturePlaces.

“I have said that is the wrong place because actually once the board is up and running it will mainly be experienced professionals and an independent chair.

“We need to give them the freedom, without interference from us, to go and do the thinking we have contracted them to do.

"Where our involvement as the council should be is commissioning and decision-making, so we have got ultimate control over it and we give them the autonomy and freedom to do it.”

Christchurch Civic Offices

Cllr Broadhead was keen to point out FuturePlaces was wholly owned by the council, in comparison to the Bournemouth Development Company which has a different arrangement as a public-private partnership between the local authority and Muse Developments, a Morgan Sindall Group company.

FuturePlaces is currently funded directly from the council’s budget. As schemes progress the funding will likely be able to be capitalised. It is also hoped that as the company starts to mature, new funding streams will come forward, including from government and development value uplifts.

In the initial stages, the council is redirecting spending it would normally be using in its traditional ‘regeneration arm’ to FuturePlaces, which is the new ‘regeneration arm’, Cllr Broadhead said.

“What started off as an effort to just get some projects accelerated because having a council officer trying to take forward the BIC redevelopment project is just bonkers,” said the senior Conservative councillor.

“It has now developed into FuturePlaces being the whole strategic brain of the whole council. Everything from our movement, how we are going to get around, transport, into the future, high street renaissance.

“All of that is being developed by FuturePlaces because we have the talent there but because it is absolutely connected to placemaking and if you really want to unleash the value of the developments you have got then you have to curate the place.”

He added: “Part of the problem we found when we took on the administration was bits of this were happening in different places, so the BIC project was being driven forward by our seafront services department.

“It was add ons to day jobs and that is not the way to unleash the place potential. You need proper experience and significant resource.

“The benefit we have got from the long-term point of view that pays dividends both in terms of the developments we do but also in terms of lifting the whole place. The reason it is more important than ever before is we have made a political commitment that we hardly want to sell anything.”

Cllr Broadhead said there are no plans to transfer any council land to the company. Instead FuturePlaces will be commissioned to help suggest what the best use of each individual site is.

The BIC in Bournemouth town centre

As reported, the council has tasked FuturePlaces with focusing attention on an initial 15 sites across the conurbation, including Poole and Christchurch civic centres, the BIC, Winter Gardens and Beach Road car park in Canford Cliffs. This commissioning plan provides a “structure” for the company to focus its attention and public consultations.

Alongside this, further site analysis has been taking place and identified potential that was not even on the radar, Cllr Broadhead said.

“The benefit we have got now is rather than go into that blind, we can go into it with not just a defined idea about what the public want and what we want, but we know it is achievable,” he added.

“Where local authorities have been really bad in the past is that they are great at coming up with pretty plans on a page but they always think about whether it is viable and how to deliver it afterwards.

“It is not how you do it in the private sector. You don’t buy a site and then pay whatever you want for it and then go ‘right, what are we going to build here’, come up with it and go ‘now, can we build it’ – it is just nonsense yet that is what successive previous councils have done.”