In conversation with… Sir Stuart Lipton

Industry titan behind Broadgate talks about the challenges and opportunities 2023 presents

What appear to be a raincoat, hat and umbrella but on closer inspection are revealed to be a trompe l’oeil piece of art carved out of wood (by Livio De Marchi) adorn the left wall of the office. To the right, there is a wall of bookcases full of hard-back architectural tomes. A white Stetson co-branded Hines and Lipton Rogers sits atop three books to the right of the desk.

This is no ordinary property heavyweight’s office. This is the eclectic Cavendish Square lair of Lipton Rogers co-founder and partner Sir Stuart Lipton. Then again, you would expect nothing less of a man who has combined delivery of some of the most iconic workplaces of the past 40 years with a lifelong interest in the arts and architecture.

Few careers are more illustrious than that of Stuart Lipton. The Stetson was a gift to mark the joint venture with US investor Hines on £1bn South Bank scheme, 18 Blackfriars, just the latest project taken on by Lipton, who also delivered ground-breaking developments such as 22 Bishopsgate and Broadgate in the City of London as well as Stockley Park and Chiswick Park in West London.

Despite recently turning 80, he has no intention of hanging up his Stetson yet, but these days he is just as interested in housing as the workplace, and it is no surprise that the former chair of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) thinks much of what is currently being delivered is woefully inadequate. In the first in our ‘In conversation with… ‘ series of interviews with industry legends on the challenges and opportunities this year presents, he explains why.

What do you make of the current political situation?

I’m going to skip the politics. That’s not for me, OK?

OK, let’s talk about the pandemic. What lasting impact do you think it will have?

Post pandemic, we are clearly in for substantial change that starts with social change in the way we live, work and the way we spend our time.

Is that specifically down to the pandemic?

We’ve seen 10 years condensed into two years of change. There is a realisation that the country as a whole needs to be working for growth deciding its vision and its financial base.

What impact did the Autumn Statement have?

It steadied the ship. None of us knows the vision that goes with the Autumn Statement, but at least we now have a stable prime minister.

Where is growth going to come from?

We are an inventive country. We have brilliant people with real skills and four of the top universities in the world. We have new science, products, visions, but what have the government and the planning system done to encourage the growth? Very little.

We know that in the new technology and life science world employee care is the focus. Employees want to walk to work, their hours are different, and they want social change and experiences, but little has changed.

What sort of change do you want to see?

Georgia Gould, the brilliant leader of Camden Borough Council, could, with a careful masterplan, rebuild the area north of Euston Road, which has old, outdated housing with people probably shivering in their homes, and a lack of community centres that bring life, fun and education.

If this area of 10,000 homes was redeveloped to a higher density, it could provide a mix of tenancies with affordable intermediate and commercial rentals and sales adjoining the Francis Crick Institute and an opportunity to add life science labs and technology buildings next to the brilliant King’s Cross development.

With commercial rents near £100/sq ft, the capital raised from land sales or joint ventures would reduce residential replacement costs with a vast amount of new space, paying for the housing and amenities and producing growth. With links to Cambridge and three major stations, what better place for growth? Will Gould take up the challenge?

You say the UK is still a well-liked country. Is it as well liked as it was?

With its legal system, welcoming government and skilled workforce, the UK is still for many a good location, Mr Rishi Sunak clearly supports the City of London, but how are the provinces to grow? Are we going to return to being an industrial nation with the products we invent being manufactured here? With robotics, we clearly could return to manufacturing, but we are the lowest user of robotics in Europe.

And London?

London remains the centre of Europe as a city with extraordinary places, spaces, art and civic life. What I’m looking for is stability and a government that attracts foreign investment and allows skilled workers to live here.

Do we have that?

The jury’s out. We’re under pressure, obviously, but so is the rest of the world, and therefore, how we invest in our infrastructure, in our education, in our industry, is significant. The question is: will there be a new policy that supports growth, supports new infrastructure, supports wider opportunity for more people on lower incomes? The private sector can finance much of these works, but our competitive rules system means it will take years to get started, although it is encouraging to see TfL and Network Rail reorganising themselves.

What bearing do the ongoing challenges have on your business?

We build office buildings based on people’s needs rather than our own, for an increasingly smart workforce, and there is clearly demand for super-prime product from companies trying to attract the most competent people in the war for talent.

What are your priorities right now?

I’m in the risk business, trying to add value and produce the very best architecture with new technology, amenities and lifestyle, with hotel-style management. The focus needs to be on people’s needs and how the office can be fun; how London and cities can be fun. People need low-cost amenities, lunches, travel costs and decent affordable housing for all.

So, where are the key opportunities?

If you look at Cambridge outside Boston in the US, salaries are three times of those in Cambridge in the UK. But in Cambridge in the UK, housing costs are two or three times those in the US. The entitlement to a decent affordable home for everyone is a basic tenet of life.

How do we deliver not just on affordability but on the number of affordable homes required?

If you go back to the post-war years of 400,000 housing units a year, most units were built by local authorities, but they did provide mostly decent homes. How do we recreate a system that respects individuals, respects the greenbelt and allows higher density? We need to think of a new social order. Where’s the vision? What kind of country do we want? Are we to face up to millions of homes needing energy upgrades, or are we just to have increasingly out-of-date housing stock?

How would you rate the UK on the environmental front?

The UK is leading the world in terms of renewable energy. We take carbon seriously here. At LRD, we believe we will succeed in a 40% carbon reduction in new buildings. The problem is that there is more technology in a Nintendo game than there is in the planning system. The planning system was invented in 1947 and is no longer fit for purpose.

What needs to change?

The government has not allowed planning at a local authority level to be funded properly, with a shortage of planners with real skills and a shortage of housing and the taxation derived from local development needs to benefit local people.

Are there any aspects of the planning regime from the past that you would like to see revived?

In the past, the planning director had real power. Increasingly, local authority planning councillors are making judgments based on political decisions rather than the needs of the public and proper planning issues.

What’s the solution?

We shouldn’t be imposing targets for local authorities; we should offer benefits. Where does the Section 106 money go? In London, half of it is in the bank of local authorities. Where does CIL money go? We end up with a system where greenbelt is protected, but tens of thousands of consents have been granted on the very greenbelt that people say is protected. So, why not have a system where greenbelt is delineated as primary, secondary and tertiary, so that the primary and secondary can only be touched when major infrastructure is being installed and the finances raised from tertiary land go back into primary and secondary? Then we’d have a controlled system and the greenbelt remains upgraded.

Are there any areas where they are getting things right?

For that kind of holistic approach to planning, there is no better place to look than the City of London, which decided in the ‘80s, with the advent of competition from Canary Wharf, that it had better update itself. The result was the loosening of the rules on density and an increasing awareness of the need for high-quality architecture. The City is now looked at as one of the architecture gems of the world. If we had the same system for housing, we wouldn’t be talking about poor quality design and products. Why is there this lack of innovation and investment? Housing is just a political football and £28bn is spent on housing grant, money down the drain that could be invested in new homes – the public is paying for this inadequate housing.

Why has no action been taken?

Some 65% of the population own their own homes and in the last decade of low interest, there has been no negative equity, so 65% have been very happy. The NIMBY system has obviously reduced supply, so the other 35% have suffered. Neither political party really cares about the other 35%.

The formerly mandatory housing target of 300,000 is now advisory. How many houses do we actually need?

We probably need 500,000 houses a year, but that won’t necessarily be a net increase because much of our housing stock is outdated and needs demolition. It is important that affordable housing occupiers have a say in new housing for them. Does it keep their social group together? Is it comfortable? We need a return to Parker Morris standards.

Isn’t that pie in the sky?

There must be common ground. The problem is that the system is polarised so much, so there appears to be no common ground. There are counties and boroughs where there is a lot of development and others where there is none. We need to have policies that allow growth throughout the country.

Don’t we also need a greater focus on quality housing?

We have a new strategy called beauty, imposed by government. What is beauty? Is it a Georgian terrace? A Victorian mansion block? We have no definition. We have brilliant architects who, by the end of the planning process, have had their ideas reduced to mediocrity. In the commercial world, which is competitive because it’s a free market, there’s been a huge upgrade in the quality not just of architecture but of the built environment and the interiors, amenities, fitness and purpose.

So why are we where we are now and how do we go about creating a better system?

Huge amounts of money are being spent on infrastructure in very limited places, with no consideration being given to a holistic approach. It’s no longer good enough to talk about monoculture and mono use. We have to talk about a holistic approach to creating 15-minute cities. But to me, the real opportunity is to take those people who are bed blockers in hospitals and look after them through the chain, first at a hotel with a few nurses and then on the high street. Then they become participants in a social revolution, where perhaps they are running the library, or selling coffee at £1 a cup, which people can afford, rather than £3.50. This all needs to be in the environment of the village green or town square to allow people to socialise and be motivated.

Has any progress been made in terms of converting redundant retail to housing?

More housing in cities is vital and more retail centres will be converted to residential, but while we are building more housing, those homes are insufficient in number and they are being built without any policy. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, you obtained planning permission in eight weeks. Now, to get consent on a mid-rise block of flats, it can take a year or two. Post-Grenfell fire precautions, while introduced with good intentions, will put another year on construction starts. The private sector suitably qualified with appropriate technology needs to be involved in the new process.

Is this a national problem?

I don’t think so. If you take Manchester, Sir Richard Leese has done an extraordinary job. Andy Burnham and Andy Street likewise. These are areas where the government has allowed them to have more authority. Howard Bernstein ran Manchester like a separate country: efficiently, caring, thoughtful. But we need more of it.

What do you think of the levelling up agenda?

It’s essential. You’ve got people living in the north with poor housing, poor employment, poor high streets. Government needs to do what it did with the new towns but in a stripped down way. It has to be creative and inventive about how it creates new places. It’s about quality rather than style. Why is housing development restricted? Why should low-density housing go onto greenbelt land? If it needs it and it’s appropriate, it should be high density.

What is your impression of Michael Gove?

Mr Gove is a very bright, smart man, but he has not yet produced one indicator of growth. I haven’t seen any vision and I have seen no attempt from him to talk to the industry, which wants to help and do the right things. We are in a system that doesn’t lead to quality or design or place or fitness for purpose.

What lessons can be learned from the past?

Why did the Georgians and the Victorians build so well? Because they were in a free market and they bought standard items, which were mass produced in high quality from construction catalogues.

What’s your view on MMC then?

MMC is disillusionment. We used it in the ‘80s at Broadgate. We made prefabricated toilets; they came on a truck. It was expensive and no faster. There is a role for amenity in podded bathrooms. MMC uses vast amounts of carbon shipping units from new factories. If you build housing as a prefabricated set of parts, which is just how the car is made, it is much more efficient using local labour. Unfortunately, government sees MMC as some sort of panacea.

So you want to see a return to the prefabs of old?

No, I’m not talking about old-fashioned prefabrication. I’m talking about building housing the same way as we build offices, so this is not old fashioned at all. What I’m describing is quality. We have brilliant architects who can produce any style that is contextual, separate but joined to the housing chassis and concrete.

What’s the upshot of all this?

We keep building the slums of tomorrow, without mixed use and local amenities. Why on earth do we build hospitals out of town? We know why. Because it’s less costly to build on greenbelt. It’s all short termism.

You think there should be more joined-up leadership on this, don’t you?

Well, the industry is not very good at these issues. Unfortunately, we have a group of organisations that don’t really work in a cohesive way. We have London First, the RICS, the RIBA, BPF and many others, but there should be a built environment [body]. Likewise, the development industry doesn’t have a cohesive policy.

So, you’d like to see an umbrella industry body?

We need to work together to produce a better product at less cost. There’s one irreplaceable ingredient in the development world and that is land and land costs too much because the supply is restricted.

Is it restricted or just not being released?

Who’s the first holder on to land? Government, local government, hospitals. Why aren’t they developing their land? Because they fear they won’t get enough money from the government for their projects.

So, what do you expect to see over the next six to 12 months?

I expect to see more people returning to the office because of a need for community and a social life, education, all the obvious things of being in a community together. At the same time, we have to recognise that people do want better conditions, and they do want to be able to work part of the time at home.

Will we be in the office four days a week or three?

It will vary, but demand will probably reduce by 20%.

What about the generational differences?

I will leave you to translate this, but in medium-sized offices, it’s the boys and girls: meet, date and mate. GEN X and Y have different needs, which must be respected.

Oh, wow, that’s putting it bluntly! Some things don’t change, though, as you say. What about the things that have changed? What do you make of the way the new chief executives are running their businesses?

They’re very decent people. They are facing challenges of change and how to grow large companies – Mark Allan, chief executive of Landsec, and Simon Carter of British Land are very capable chaps – but they face challenges, which I am sure they will overcome.

My interest is not in individuals but in the industry working together. There used to be a property advisory group (PAG) and architectural advisory group (CABE), which were both abolished. These days, nobody from the government talks to the private sector; there is no discourse at all. We are a nation of wonderful spaces, parks, places, listed buildings and properties. We seem to be trying to freeze our built environment.

Is there anything you are working on that you would like to talk about?

No, no, no. I’m more concerned that we all achieve a higher-quality built environment with more people in homes of better quality and less cost. That would solve national problems, reduce crime and enhance health and education. A joined-up system would save tens of billions, but is government capable of that?