Croydon’s Place Review Panel has been gagged, just three months since the building design body was set up, at potentially considerable public expense.
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The panel is the latest pet project of council chief executive – and honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects – Jo Negrini.
“The Place Review Panel will oversee the development of the whole place with a view to improving the borough’s look and feel for those living, working and visiting the borough,” was what Negrini said as recently as November, when revealing the names of the 22 members and three co-chairs in the hand-picked panel.
When launched, it seemed to be suggested that the Place Review Panel could serve as some sort of architectural watchdog for Croydon, looking after the public interest by airing expert opinions of some of the biggest and most high-profile schemes coming down the planning pathway to a neighbourhood near you – such as the £1.4billion Westfield supermall project, developers’ Hub’s plan to build on the former site of Taberner House and on to parts of Queen’s Gardens, or for the sky-high tower at No1 Lansdowne.
Indeed, shortly after the panel was announced, Angela Brady, one of its co-chairs, told Inside Croydon that it would be essential for the PRP to spend time looking at Westfield and Hammerson’s revised proposals for redeveloping the Whitgift Centre and Centrale.
But now it turns out that Brady and her bunch of architects and design gurus may never get a chance to review what could be the most important development project in central Croydon for a generation.
In fact, it seems possible that none of the results of the experts’ deliberations may ever be published if individual developers opt to veto the panel’s reports on their projects.
The expertise of Negrini’s architect chums never comes cheap. The panellists are each to be paid a day’s professional fees and expenses for their time and insights – something which could easily amount to £100,000 of our hard-pressed council’s cash in the first year alone.
As part of Negrini’s latest cunning plan, perhaps in an attempt to cover some of those costs, developers who submit their schemes to the panel are expected to pay £5,000 (including VAT) for the privilege of getting a seal of approval from the Croydon’s panel of experts.
But if they don’t like what the panel comes up with, the developers can refuse the council permission to publish it.
And if they refuse to cough up the five grand fee, Negrini’s Place Review Panel may not even be asked to take a look at their plans – even if those plans are for a £1.4billion redevelopment of the town centre.
In the council’s guidance on the work of the Place Review Panel, its says, “The panel’s report on reviews will be confidential until a full planning application is submitted. Once a valid full planning application is submitted and registered on the council website, the panel’s report will be published online and released as a public document with the full planning application, unless otherwise agreed with the applicant team.” Those are our italics.
Three months into Croydon’s Place Review Panel’s existence, and so far not a single report has been published.
Block by Block: Croydon Council CEO Jo Negrini
Or is it Cheek by Jowl?
Or perhaps it is Brick by Brick?
Because surely the council’s own company will have been requesting peer reviews of its architect-designed schemes, seeking endorsement for work which effectively has been commissioned by Negrini and her sometime council planning department deputy, Colm Lacey?
But if they have, no one is saying.
Members of the panel have been ordered not to speak to the press and told that their deliberations are “strictly confidential”.
And the council’s press office this week refused to answer any questions about how many schemes had been reviewed by the Place Review Panel. Nor would they say what those schemes might be.
The council press office was unable or unwilling to say when any of the Place Review Panel’s reports on schemes might be published.
It all makes the comments four months ago from Alison Butler, the Labour council’s cabinet member for homes, regeneration and planning, ring more hollow than usual. “The panel is made up of an exciting group of experts and their valuable knowledge will be instrumental in furthering Croydon’s commitment to achieve the highest quality architecture across the borough,” said Butler.
Alison Butler is backed up by her husband, the planning committee chair
Scott also happens to be Alison Butler’s husband.
“It is an exciting time for regeneration in Croydon and the panel’s expertise will elevate the quality of new developments across the borough,” Scott said. Ahhh: Elevate the quality.
“I’m looking forward to the highest quality architecture and urban design coming to committee.” Which is a view probably shared by most of the people of Croydon. It has just been such a long wait, though…
According to a badly drafted council press release issued at the time, “The panel will play an important role in scrutinising and challenging design quality, to allow the borough’s renaissance …” yes, renaissance, no less “… to fully flourish and create places that continue to attract investment and that people care about and want to spend time in.”
Although that “important role” of the panel in scrutinising design quality is now being kept well away from any scrutiny of its own.
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