Panel of experts: no, not that latest line up for I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, but the return to MIPIM of former Croydon CEO Jo Negrini (second from right)
Watch out London. The capital city’s Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, has made his first visit to MIPIM, the global property developers conference staged each spring in Cannes, with a notorious reputation in the past as a “booze and hookers fest”. Nothing quite so sordid these days, we’re almost certain.
London for sale: Sir Sadiq Khan flogging the capital to oil-rich Middle East investors, the Chinese and US property magnates at MIPIM yesterday
And there on the London roster of panellists to lecture the world on how to make a quick buck at the expense of public bodies is none other than Jo Negrini, the woman who played a key part in bankrupting a borough.
Mayor Sir Sadiq was peddling something called Opportunity London, an “investment prospectus” seeking “partners” offering around £22billion towards 20 projects that have not quite managed to get off the drawing board.
There is no sign of any Croydon schemes there, but as one example of quite how flaky some of the projects might be, one of them is for 450 homes on six development sites across the borough of Lambeth. That’s the same Lambeth that last month landed a £40million government bail-out specifically for its housing budget, in part because of the collapse of its Homes for Lambeth development scheme.
MIPIM, for new readers, is le Marché International des Professionnels de l’Immobilier, an almighty piss-up in the South of France, mostly on expenses, and mostly someone else’s, for “global investors” that claims to attract 22,500 delegates from 90 countries.
“Looking forward to discussing equitable growth at MIPIM at the London Stand with some planning and regeneration big hitters!” trilled MIPIM veteran Negrini ahead of her return visit.
As iC wrote six years ago, when she was still Croydon Council’s CEO, “Negrini’s season ticket for MIPIM… for her annual jaunt to the Cote d’Azur (what Labour council leader Tony Newman once accurately described as “a junket”), always appears to be more about her personal career positioning than any value to the people of the borough who pay her very generous wages.”
Negrini was then on around £220,000 per year as the CEO of a council which had, even then, accrued debts of almost £900million.
The press office at MIPIM described Negrini as the person who “now pulls the strings on bringing together all the services of the council, together with partners to make Croydon a place where people want to be.” Ahhh, happy days.
“Jo now has, in her words, ‘the best regeneration job in London’ as chief executive of the fastest growing economy in London.” What could possibly go wrong?
For MIPIM 2025, there’s no mention at all of Croydon on Negrini’s conference blurb. Funny that.
All pals together: Sir Sadiq Khan opens the London tent at MIPIM, where Jo Negrini is part of the London ‘Opportunity’ presentation
The London at MIPIM team did, though, helpfully share an image of Negrini’s on-stage appearance, yesterday morning. She was on a panel together with Victoria Hills, the chief exec of the Royal Town Planners Institute, Katie Stewart, from the City of London, and Joanna Averley, from the Ministry of Housing etc etc etc.
These days, Negrini is blagging a living from Arup, as their “director of cities, planning and design”. Arup got a fair bit of work from Croydon Council when Negrini was working in Croydon.
Negrini and her panel colleagues yesterday were discussing “Planning change, driving growth”, which, on the evidence of her time in Croydon – Westfield, Brick by Brick and the Fairfield Halls fiasco – Negrini knows absolutely nothing about.
Sadly, there’s been no reports of what wisdom Negrini may have shared with her audience, although Hills is supposed to have said: “What you’ve got at this moment in time is a golden opportunity to change conversation and be part of that change of conversation.” So the usual torrent of bullshit then.
“One of the ways to stimulate growth in our economy is more foreign direct investment,” Mayor Sir Sadiq said ahead of his visit.
“That will help build more homes, help invest in public transport, and help invest in infrastructure.” Or not, if Croydon is anything to go by, despite Negrini’s repeated jollies to MIPIM.
“I don’t apologise for banging the drum for London at the MIPIM conference,” Sir Sadiq said, perhaps anticipating the fall-out of his taking a large delegation – all paid for by Londoner’s Council Tax – including senior City Hall figures Tom Copley, Jules Pipe and Howard Dawber (Jason Perry’s new bestie).
What benefits might be achieved from attending MIPIM are rarely defined. Croydon certainly had little to show for Negrini’s repeat visits, despite paying a small fortune to PR agencies and the conference organisers for their passes and stands.
Cote d’Azur: London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has yet to reveal how much his office and agencies are spending during MIPIM, noted for its generous hospitality
The London Mayor has been hawking… sorry, presenting investment opportunities… for a number of Network Rail properties, including at Liverpool Street Station, Bow Goods Yard, and Victoria and Waterloo Stations.
According to City Hall, this was all “to seek investment to help build thousands of more affordable homes for Londoners and to unlock new infrastructure and jobs in the capital”. So just the same schtick that Negrini and her pals, such as Croydon’s planning director Heather Cheesbrough, came up with when they went to Cannes for Croydon, just on a bigger scale.
The Mayor of London’s press office release mentions “opportunities to build new housing and build-to-rent developments”, which they say “are desperately needed in London”. Nowhere did they mention council homes.
Among the infrastructure schemes that the Mayor is seeking support for is the £10billion Bakerloo line extension to south-east London. Long-promised, and now long-forgotten, extensions to the Croydon tram network don’t get a look in among these “opportunities” in London.
“Opportunity London is the capital investment partnership for London, bringing together every tier of government in London and is backed by industry to provide a single front door for investors,” said the Mayor’s press release.
“With investment volumes in London expected to pick up in 2025 as interest rates fall and market confidence improves, the Opportunity London prospectus comes at a pivotal moment to attract capital, accelerate the city’s growth and build more of the affordable homes Londoners need.”
MIPIM veteran: Jo Negrini has been a Cannes regular, here seen in 2018 with her ‘minder’, estate agent Richard Plant
Mayor Sir Sadiq said: “I am determined to play our part in delivering the UK government’s No1 mission: growth. We have recently launched our own ambitious growth plan for London,” at which Negrini made an appearance, too, “and attracting new investment for major housing and transport projects will be vital to boosting productivity and improving living standards in London and across the country.”
All of which are messages that Londoners, and Croydon residents, have heard many times before. And if Sir Sadiq Khan is entrusting roles in that investment drive to snake oil salesmen and the likes of Jo Negrini, then there’s plenty of evidence to suggest he has little chance of achieving his goals.
Read more: Negrini doctored specialist reports and withheld finance details
Read more: Police drop all investigations into council’s financial collapse
Read more: Negrini’s fellowship and council’s deal with architects’ firm
Read more: Mayor Perry and Negrini together again at Growth Plan launch
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Disgusting. She was the CEO making or signing off the decisions that bankrupted the Council. What does she know about growth when she achieved the opposite? And we have to pay for her mistakes and her arrogance for decades to come. She should have taken the outrageous settlement and disappeared under a rock (and taken Heather Cheesbrough with her) instead of shamelessly promoting herself.
Funny how year after year public bodies attend this “event” and come back with no development commitments and even less actual new build. The same people who bleat on about how cuts need to be made to public services always find the odd million to visit this event without justifying the benefits produced. Just pretend the potholes in the road and the flytipping you walk past doesn’t exist.
Like cigarettes (isn’t she one of those fag bandits, who insisted on having paid smoking breaks while she was bankrupting Croydon Council?!), shouldn’t employing/paying any money at all to Jo Negridi come with a health/wealth warning, that she will take any employers to the cleaners and then get away scot-free ?!