Political Editor, WALTER CRONXITE, on the revolving door between City Hall, south London councils and lobbying firms, and how that might play a part in this week’s big residential scheme at Croydon’s planning committee
Build, Bingle! Build: Lord Len Duvall, who has just signed up with a notorious firm of lobbyists
Len Duvall, the longest-serving London Assembly Member and one of Labour’s just-announced peers of the realm, might yet have some influence over the latest, massive flat-building scheme proposed for central Croydon.
But “Lord Len” won’t necessarily intervene in his public, elected capacity.
Instead, he might just be having a quiet word in the shell-likes of planning movers and shakers on behalf of his new best mates at the Terrapin Group, the lobbying firm run by the notorious bon viveur Peter Bingle.
Duvall’s elevation to the House of Lords was announced on the same day that Private Eye exposed how he is being paid by Bingle to use his position, contacts and influence on behalf of Terrapin’s clients.
But Lord Gnome had barely half the story.
Bon viveur: Terrapin’s Peter Bingle is a notorious ‘schmoozer’
“Our new appointments are superbly placed,” Bingle boasted as he announced the signing of Duvall as a “senior adviser”.
“They will ensure our clients stay ahead of the game.”
One of those Terrapin clients is Ivel Ltd, the Isle of Man-registered property developers who have a planning application with Croydon Council for the demolition of Woburn Court and Bedford Court, off Wellesley Road, which they want to replace with 445 flats – including 156 “affordable” homes – in four tower blocks, the tallest of which would be 32 storeys.
There’s a chance that Lord Len could help ensure that Ivel Ltd “stay ahead of the game” for this project, whether with the Croydon planning department, or if it eventually gets referred to City Hall. Such is the size of the development, the proposals have already been subject to pre-application meetings at the GLA, twice, in July 2019 and August 2023.
Duvall grew up on a council estate in Woolwich. Despite being elevated to the House of Lords, he is expected to continue as a London Assembly Member, where he was first elected in 2000, when the new capital-wide authority was established. Lord Bailey of Paddington, the Conservatives’ embarrassingly bad London Mayor candidate in 2021, already manages to flit from one chamber to the other.
New peer: how Lord Len Duvall appears on the Terrapin lobbyists website, alongside founder Bingle and his wife, Liz Williams
Duvall, who is chair of the Assembly and leader of the Labour group at City Hall, will just have to find a way of squeezing two days per month for Terrapin into his busy diary.
The peerage and the nice little earner with Terrapin have served to confirm the assumption among City Hall insiders that Duvall could well not seek re-election to the Assembly in 2028, by which time he will be approaching his 67th birthday.
Duvall signing up with Terrapin is legal and allowed, of course, even if one City Hall figure described the arrangement with the lobbying firm as “distasteful”. Duvall’s declarations of interest have been duly updated to include Terrapin.
Lord John: another new Labour peer, Peter John, the former leader of Southwark Council, has only just quit Bingle’s firm
Bingle’s Terrapin Group has always had an impressive list of property developers among its clients.
In the past, he has had current or former local authority figures on his staff. For example, Peter John, who when leader of Southwark handed over huge swathes of council housing to LendLease, became chair of Terrapin Group, soon after stepping down from the local authority . Lendlease had been clients of Terrapin.
Croydon councillor Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall since 2022, is also a Terrapin employee.
John was also named as a new peer in the announcement last week.
When the trio quit, Bingle vented his fury in a flurry of social media posts, before then revealing his three new advisers: Duvall and Alex Wilson, plus Andrew Sharp, a “political consultant” who was once Labour’s London region director.
City Hall sources say that the news that Duvall had signed up with Bingle came as a complete surprise, not least since he did so alongside Wilson, Reform UK’s leader on the Assembly.
Duvall represents Lewisham and Greenwich, where his partner, Jackie Smith, is a council cabinet member.
He is already paid £79,617 to hold Mayor Sadiq Khan to account. Then there’s the prospect of £371 per day for clocking on at the House of Lords. And now, he will also be trousering an estimated extra 20 grand or so a year, plus probably receiving plenty of invitations to Bingle lunches, where he can rub shoulders with property speculators and developers.
According to Wilson, Terrapin “… responsibly, consult politicians and experts at all levels to deliver the best outcomes for stakeholders in the built environment, the most important of whom are local residents”. So that’s alright then.
Ready for the bulldozers: 1960s-built oburn Court and Bedford Court are plagued by ‘a range of unpleasant activities’
City Hall’s monitoring officer, Roy McKenna, confirmed everything is above board: “Neither the law nor the Greater London Authority’s Code of Conduct prohibits an elected member from holding an external role.” Which is nice. And cosy.
“My responsibility as an Assembly Member to my constituents has, and always will, come first,” Duvall said when asked about his new deal with Terrapin.
It is too soon to say whether that will be enough to reassure Londoners who are waiting decisions from City Hall on development schemes worth billions that are being lined up across the city. These include the new “new town” of Thamesmead, in Greenwich, or at Convoys Wharf, Lewisham, one of the last remaining Thames-side development sites, which has been vacant for around 30 years. Both projects are on Duvall’s home patch.
In Croydon, Terrapin have been involved in getting planning permission for the Croydon Park Hotel site (another scheme that has stalled, as the developers grumble about “viability”), as well as providing “advice” on Crystal Palace’s £150million new main stand.
Councillor King maintains he played no part in council business on schemes in which his employers had an interest.
There have been proposals to bulldoze Woburn Court and Bedford Court knocking around for almost eight years. A 2018 planning application wanted to build 650 flats.
Large site: it has taken almost a decade to pull together the various packages of land which comprise the Bedford Court and Woburn Court estate, to the north of Croydon town centre
And this is a proposal over which there have only been a few objections from the current residents of the run-down estate, at least as far as the most recent consultation, in 2023, suggests. That consultation, as documents on the council’s planning portal confirm, was run by Terrapin Group.
The matter is due to be brought before Croydon’s planning committee this Thursday.
The project has been slow in coming forward. The latest application was submitted in July 2024, but completely updated in August this year.
The introduction letter from agents for the developers makes no bones about what they see as the need for redevelopment – albeit with more than £125million-worth of residential property at the end of it.
“The eight existing blocks and their lock-up garages that make up this estate were built in the 1960s with poor quality materials and provide sub-standard residential accommodation, which is at the end of its economic life and which fails to meet current standards.
“It would not be practical or viable to bring them up to modern standards. The existing estate also attracts a wide range of antisocial behaviour, including drug-dealing and misuse, extensive fly tipping, vandalism and a range of unpleasant activities.” Yes. A “range of unpleasant activities”.
The letter continues: “It was some of the residents of Woburn and Bedford Courts who first initiated these redevelopment proposals, seeking a developer to purchase and redevelop this privately owned but run-down estate.
Tall order: the four residential blocks proposed include one that is 32 storeys tall
“Planning permission is needed in order to provide certainty for the remaining site assembly.”
It could well be that one of Lord Len’s new Terrapin colleagues will be in attendance at Croydon Town Hall on Thursday evening, on behalf of the developers, to observe the quasi-judicial process of the planning committee.
Croydon’s planning committee members include Labour veteran councillors Clive “Thirsty” Fraser and Sean Fitzsimons.
In the past, Bingle’s been known to wine and dine MP Steve Reed, so Fraser and Fitzsimons could get invites to Terrapin’s Christmas party, and it would all be completely allowed and above-board.
Build, Bingle! Build!, as Reed might say…
Read more: Council flogs off hotel for less than £29.8m it cost to buy
Read more: After billions in regeneration deals, might Bingle eye Croydon?
Read more: Council deputy leader gets new job working for lobbyists
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A dodgy planning department and associations with questionable lobbying companies and their developers is one reason why the town centre is such an incoherent mess. The corrupt merry-go-round needs to end.
I think the Isle of Man structure is interesting!
The investors in this project are using a trust structure in an IoM company, which means nobody knows who is behind this. Does this matter? Arguably yes. They are looking for a few favours from the Council. Compulsory Purchase Orders and also, I believe, buying a small parcel of land from the council.
The government gave us legislation such that it is possible to write to Companies House to request details of the beneficial owners, but you first need to know the name of the trust, which nobody does, so the request is refused.
My view is that the scheme should be judged on its merits, but in the first instance, interested parties should know who is funding it and who will benefit financially.