[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Concilio Better Places podcast, where I'm absolutely delighted today to be joined by Patrick Scully, uh, who is the chief executive of a Hackney Wick and Fish Island Community Development Trust. And I did remember it about looking at my notes. Welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, man. Um, Patrick, I thought it's pretty best we start just a little bit about your career and how you've ended up in the position that you have.

Uh, yeah. So I, um, well, thanks for having me on. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Great to see you. Um. So my background, yeah. I did music for a really, really long time.

Mm-hmm. So I grew up in the, the East Midland in a small town called Horn Castle. Mm-hmm. Which is about 20 miles outside. Lincoln, an old market town. Yep. Yep. Um, but my family's from London, but I didn't, I didn't grow up here and. Just very normal kid life. Mm-hmm. But kinda late in my secondary school time, I guess the internet started picking up, uh, laptops started picking up like technology to make music started picking up and so I could [00:01:00] make songs in my bedroom.

And so that became my, uh. Yeah, my passion and the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life, really. Mm-hmm. And so I spent, yeah, the best part of, I went to uni, did music technology, which was fantastic. Kind of a, a, a, yeah. I mean, I, it was like, I, I remember, I remember really clearly at college getting the English literature, uh, and language, I think.

And then that was gonna be one path that they accepted at uni. And then there was the music one, and then at 18 you get to choose, right? So you choose the thing that's more exciting. So I chose music. Um. And yeah, it was, it's, it was a hell of a ride. I, I, you know, was a DJ for a really long time. Mm-hmm. And I put up music, uh, my own name, which is s Scally is, is kind my last name.

And, uh, in a group called Half Brother with a guy called me Dave, who's a kind of big artist now. And, uh, and also did Club Nights, a guy, Mike Skinner, who's the Streets. Yep. Who was, you know, my brother's like Idol, thought we just worshiped his stuff. So yeah. Really sort of crazy time. But really the, I guess the, the bit that connects to what I'm doing now mm-hmm.[00:02:00]

Is. Music is an incredibly hard career. Yeah, I think anyone would admit that, and whenever it wouldn't. Work very well for me financially. I would sort of moonlight, I say in setting up creative workspaces. Okay. So specifically in East London. And as I said, I grew up in a small town. We were kind of the outside Southerner family growing up in the East Midlands.

Um, always tells a story like my mum, uh, always tells it anyway, and she says when she moved us to the town she was confided in this older lady. Mm-hmm. About. Wanting our family to be accepted in the town. And the lady was like, oh, don't worry lovey, we'll accept you. It's fine. Just give it 30 years. So it was that sort of classic like, we'll take you, but yeah.

Prove, prove yourself first. Yeah. There's a lot here about generational families and stuff and that was something that I think we always kind of felt slightly outside, so I always wanted to feel inside in something. Yep. And what East London gave me, uh, in that period, like 15. Also years ago was a [00:03:00] chance in the creative artistic world to really be part of something and these sort of shared hubs of creative people.

Mm-hmm Creative practice events, quite radical stuff was my chance I think, to get a real sense of that. And so I started setting up spaces with, uh, companies like this Nettel House and Hackney Downs in, in, I was gonna say,

whereabouts in East London are we talking? So when I moved down to London, so I've been here since 2001 and my first, first lived on Hackney Road and it was very much.

Uh, that Old Street area before it became Silicon Roundabout was the kind of the hub, the creative hub. Um, but you know, as rents have gone up Mm. That has moved out. So, so whereabouts in East London are we specifically talking when you started this?

Yes. Well, what well said, I think, well, so what, what my focus or when I kind of came into it, I guess Hor had probably started to lose its affordability in quite significant way.

And so we're talking. London Fields talking hackney downs, uh, Hackney wick eventually. And so it's sort of migrating further and further east, [00:04:00] really. And so my, uh, I, I did a few spaces in the kinda silicon roundabout area for a company called Runway East. I worked for them for a while. Yep. Um. And so I, I sort of was trying lots of different things, but essentially through my whole time it was, uh, you know, very soft skills, just sort of mm-hmm.

Wanting to be around people, really interested in being around people with creative ideas who are just challenging things, building creative things. Yeah. And so that really, yeah, just excited me and I think over the years. Uh, that's all built and built and built. And, uh, I did a brief year in Berlin, which was probably more a, uh, like a Ian, like mm-hmm.

You know, wanting to get out and be someone else thing. The techno nights, I assume. Yeah. Plenty of those. Yeah. Um, I always say if I'd stayed there any longer, I probably wouldn't have ever made it out. I think it's such an intoxicating place. But, uh, and then when I came back, I, I worked for the Tery who's a, a kind of pretty.

Major player in the kind of creative spaces world, set up two spaces in the Olympic Park area. Okay. [00:05:00] So the tramp on the gantry, which is in here East, which is the old Yes, I know that press and Olympic done. Yeah. Brilliant job. I've done that. Brilliant job. And then Fish Island Village, which is the Europe's largest uh, campus for sustainable fashion.

So did those projects with the tre and then that kind of led to this moment of really being at the CDT. So I went to work for Hackney and Tower Hamlet's Council for a while. Yep. On uh, place-based kinda economic development. Mm-hmm. And the cultural sector. And during that time and all my time in Hackney Wick, I'd.

Been a long admir of what the, we call the CDT, sort of, just for short were, were doing. Mm-hmm. So it felt quite radical in the commercial space and the affordable workspace sector mm-hmm. Felt really necessary to me. Yep. And so as they were building, I was kind of supporting in different roles and we were kind of building together.

And in a, in a, about 18 months ago, I decided to kind of come over and help them launch their first kind of major project. Right. Yeah.

So what, what. So we'll call it the CDT, but the Hackney. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hackney Wick and Fish Island Community Development Trust. Just sort of from now on to be called the CDT [00:06:00] in this conversation for publication.

Yeah. What is, what is the purpose? What, what does it do? What does the raise on Detra?

Yeah. I mean, our core thing is really that it was set up around 2017. Mm-hmm. By four. Anchor organizations in Hackney Wick who had been around pre Olympics, really been at the vanguard of the area for a really long time, who were seeing the rapid regeneration of the area and believing that too much of that regeneration was falling into private hands.

Mm-hmm. And that people like them who had really been the, um, the bellwethers. Yeah. Uh, were now no longer central in the conversation. Uh, and there was a real loss of social fabric there, so. These folks came together, um, and it was, so it was grow in Hackney who, who are still there now? Yes. Yeah. Um, star Space who, uh, are no longer there, but uh, still operate under different, uh, names.

A company called Creative WIC as well, um, who do the, the cultural interest group. Mm-hmm. A really key organization in the area. And then the Art Theater, [00:07:00] which is a, the main kind of theater group in the area. And again, still there, still doing amazing things. And so really this, this kind of group of people came together to say.

There needs, there's public ownership, there's private ownership. Mm-hmm. We need community, uh, ownership of assets. Yeah. To have a material and moral say in how this area has been shaped. And so for the best part of, yeah, 6, 5, 6 years, it was a lot of. Great work in terms of mm-hmm. Helping specifically the LLDC, also Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

'cause we bridged the two. Yes. Of course Boroughs, um, and the L LDCs have planning control until very recently. Very, very recently. Yeah. So it was always working with those people to help them understand. Where the pain points are, what's the local temperature specifically in terms of assets around commercial workspace and, uh, ideally housing, but commercial workspace specifically.

So trying to help them to understand what's going wrong, uh, and, and maybe where policy's falling short. And so we've been working for a long time to say. [00:08:00] In order to preserve the social fabric of the area and to truly create a livable place, community needs to have a deeper say. Mm-hmm. And so that's what we've been working at for a really long time.

And last year we got our first sort of major, uh, memoir project, which was connected to this long lease that we've got with a company called halian, which is

Oh, housing? Yes. Uh, no. Hal is this 115 hundred? 290 Wallace Road. Exactly. You just wanna explain about that. I think it's a 99 year peppercorn. It is.

Rents now commercially. What is the advantage to a developer of entering a 99 year peppercorn rent? And why would house you think that was? A sensible thing to do.

Yeah. I mean, well, from my perspective, of course. I mean, I'm sure they'll have a slightly unique take on their side too. But the conversation goes a long way back.

I mean, many of the people that work for Hal and now used to work for the Collective, which is a company that went Yeah. Yep, yep. Um, under, during kind of COVID. And so they were. Developing lots of sites involved in many sites in the area. Mm-hmm. So these people were actively engaged with the area, so knew the, uh, movers and shakers mm-hmm.

Knew [00:09:00] where the problems were. And so we were keeping know, it's what we do, we're connectors. Well, that, that's our okay. In, that's our, I guess, our key skill I think in mm-hmm. In, in that world and the political world, but also the, the every person on the street on a bench having a conversation. So really for them, we ended the conversation to say.

And it goes back even further really because for, for three or four years we've been working, uh, through A-A-G-L-A funder program. Um, it was High Streets for All, so it was a post COVID recovery program. We won a, a grant to do a, a circular economy High Street. Mm-hmm. Which was Hawick, if anyone knows it doesn't have a traditional High Street is, you know, the industrial makeup is very.

Prevalent Hackney Wick

and Fish Island. Interchangeable in terms of how you described them or not? Because I, I, immediately, my mind's eye went to Fish Island more than, yeah. I would call Ram. But is it one amorphous place or,

I think it's, it's, it depends who you talk to. Mm-hmm. I think if you've been in the area a long time, you, there's a, there's a quite significant brand of HWFI, hack Norwick and Fish Island, and I think they've always sort of seen [00:10:00] themselves as, as, as close.

And if not. The same thing I think to your person who's moved into the area, they'd see them as very different. I think Fish Island and estate agents are probably brand different and estate agents certainly. Yeah. So like even. Yeah. Even here east, like I would call here east kind of hackney wick, even though it's, yes, it's above, it's, it's on the canal.

It's on the other side. It's on the other side. So therefore, yeah. But people would go like, it's Stratford, but I'm like, that's not Stratford to me. But you know, I'm sure there's someone out there who can give me a, a logical reason for why it is. So I think all of these things are kind of, it's more of an identity thing.

Mm-hmm. And it's what we, we use it as an identity thing to sort of talk about this idea of when, before the change, it really was a kind of unified area of people who were. Slightly bohemian, slightly different, uh, free thinking. And I think that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the spirit of the place.

Yeah. Um, so we were, yeah, exactly. So we were, you know, we were looking at, we worked for ages with the local community to understand what the biggest issues were in that moment. Mm-hmm. And one of them was around climate change. And, and that kind of [00:11:00] came through very clear to us in all the work we'd done for, for, for a while.

But specifically there was a really unique. Innovative business community who are, you know, winning major global awards and you know, doing great things in the local area, like grassroots business, but also lots of PE businesses that weren't in that space who wanted to just be better citizens of the planet, or people who lived in their house and thought, can I do more with my waste?

I'd like to have more ethical consumption choices locally. And so all of a sudden for us, that felt like something we could connect with, and it spoke to what we were about. And also gave us a unique hook in terms of what we were gonna do delivering space. Because I think the key, to go back to your kind of original question, what's, what is the advantage of them working with us in this moment is that, you know, we've delivered these circular economy hubs.

Mm-hmm. Which. Isn't being done anywhere else, not even in Hackney Wick, uh, specifically in, in, in East London. So these physical pieces of space where this really a bleeding edge of the economy is kind of coming together and doing amazing things [00:12:00] to them is like a really unique selling point for their development to have that happening.

Um, you know, and to, if we think about de-risking, I mean the fact that we were able to get. A 10,000 square foot building, a hundred percent occupied within a couple of months at a a, you know, below market rent, but not a dirt sheet market rent, if I'm being truthfully honest. Mm-hmm. Um, that's an incredible signal to that developer.

Yeah. And I think ultimately for them, that with a co-living development, I think, and, and looking at their other developments, they have, they ground floors are very different, but they recognized the need for something that was really locally rooted in Hackney Wick. I think if they come and done something which was identical to their other sites, yeah.

Or brought. So

it's creating that sense of place. Absolutely. Yeah. Or not, not creating it is using what is already there. Um, it always amazes me on the amount of new build large developments. I can picture a number we've worked on across London where the ground floor spaces are still empty oh, 4, 5, 6 years after, after being built.

Um, now you could argue about inflexibility of local authority planning policies. It means they have to be certain users. [00:13:00] Mm-hmm. To one side. What you are doing is actually ensuring that that ground floor. Is animated almost from day one. Yes. I assume. Which therefore makes it a more attractive place, and to be frank, from a developer perspective, brings

more

value.

Yes. And it's, and it goes deeper. It's, it's the fact that we've created this thing not out of the, the genius of our minds or something. Mm-hmm. It's listening to local people, understanding what they want to see, and trying to, you know, whether it's in the governance, in the use of the asset, it's, it's things that go deeper than a traditional.

As you say, we've got a planning condition to deliver some affordable workspace. Let's do an open thing to the operators. Mm-hmm. And see who can basically give us the best, who bites, who bites, who bites. Yeah. So for us, this is saying actually we want the hands of the local people across every part of it.

Mm-hmm. And I actually think as we were talking before, the part in terms of living on a, uh, in, in a property like that, uh, if I was a young person. Who moved into a, a co-living place and had a ground floor that was actively being run by the community full of [00:14:00] community use and spirit. That's something that I'd wanna come home to every day.

Yeah, that's something that would make me, the synergies are clear though, aren't that type of I think that, yeah. So I think a lot of that it's, it's the working relationship with them. It's the working relationship with the LLDC. So we've spent a long time trying to work with them to. Kinda get roots. And so I think it was the kind of perfect confluence of a lot of things.

Yeah. And, and we are just really excited, especially to that point around the 99 years because that's really, that's a commitment. That is a commitment. It's the biggest commitment. Yeah. So it all of a sudden makes us be able to think really radically about, yes, how's this space gonna run? Like mm-hmm.

What's, what's, who gets to say how things are decided and changed and shaped where if we were working on a, on a one year or even a five year, very difficult. Very difficult. Very difficult. So

did the, um, the trust play quite a role in the Hackney wick? Kind of central master plan as well. How did you get involved in that and kinda what advice would you give to, I mean, you're quite unique as a trust, but are lots of community stakeholder groups who aren't a trust, who also want to get involved and how, how would you go about that?

How would you say it's best for local people to influence [00:15:00] local authorities when they're creating these master plans?

Yeah. Well, I think one of our unique things is that. In terms of our team and in terms of our, our non-executive directors and the fact that everyone is genuinely from the local area and working on it, it means that our reach is really quite deep and the, the, the length of time that reach has been happening has been really deep.

So there's trust there. So I think with the councils, it's something whereby we have, you know, we have those open lines. Everyone has an open line, you know, if you wanna go and change something in your area. Mm-hmm. Speak to your local counselor. It does work. You know, really it can work. Um, but I think that the, the key I guess is probably stepping back, thinking about how unique the area has been since the Olympics.

It really meant that there was a sharp focus from the, the local politicians, uh, on what was happening and so, and getting it right. So I think for us. A key thing we worked on was the Creative Enterprise zone, which was, uh, it's a GLA initiative that's, it's all over London now. And I was, I actually ended up leading on the Hackney week one myself when I was [00:16:00] at Tower Hamilton Hackney.

But the, the, the, the CDT were one of the people that was central to that happening. So it's the CDT working with the, the boroughs. It's working on the LDC and saying, you know, yes, we can get this money in. Yes, this is what it could change. But actually while we're doing this, if say, if the program only lasts five years, what's the legacy after five years?

Don't wind it down. Could you actually build more robustness in a community organization, like a trust to have these things? Go on for much longer. And I think that's the thing that putting that front and center in a lot of conversations has been what's helped us to, um, have that proliferate. And now it's the fact that we're doing the Loop, which is our circular economy hub and our, and our textile use hub.

What does actually, what does that actually mean for Loop? So what does, what does the Hub do? Yeah, so the hub, so we call it a circular economy hub. Yeah. And again, it's, it was, it's one of the demonstrator projects as part of the, the GLA program that I mentioned, but also as part of the, uh, lld c's, uh, shift program, which is the future [00:17:00] industries demonstrated, which is shared prosperity, UK share prosperity funding, um, sort of stuff that kind of replaced leveling up.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so we basically. Got this meanwhile site, which is gonna be the future site which we're developing on. So in, on Wallace Road, uh, a kind of empty warehouse. And for a long time we've been working on this idea of how can we create infrastructure in their local area to have this circular economy movement really pick up.

And so a lot of that work was around, um, you know, what, what does it take for a business, a small business, to, to. Enter this space and grow. And so a lot of that is around shared capacity, shared facilities, quite common stuff. Also some unique things and things that we learned, especially by doing it. Okay.

So I can go into those, but I think essentially how I look at it is, um, you know, we, we've done the spit and sawdust version of. Bringing light industrial space back to Hackney Wick, which again, has completely disappeared. You

mentioned earlier the, the fashion.

Mm-hmm.

I can't remember the sta the, [00:18:00] um, statistic use the largest.

Yeah. So Europe's, uh, largest campus for sustainable fashion was the T Trry Fish Island Village. Yeah. So that's, um, it's about 50,000 square feet. But again, you know, when you look at that, it's. You know, it's not major fashion production. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's a lot of design. Sure. But that, you know, you're not gonna go there and find people, you know, crowded around pattern cutting tables, you know, so whereas we are actually at the loop, you know, we have companies who are.

Around machinery, making noise, breaking things down, waste, and turning it into new products. So whether it's plastics into new products, whether it's spent grains into kojis, uh, you know, fermented sources and things like that. Um, and garments, you know, even, you know, oyster shells into bio concrete, you know, the list goes on.

But essentially what we've done, like if you come to the loop, it's a spit and sawdust light industrial space, uh, that's cheap, that essentially tries to. Coalesce all these people mm-hmm. Into a space to be able to really push the message. And I think that's what it is. It's not, it's not the best example of, I'm sure you can go to somewhere like Denmark and [00:19:00] Sweden and find these fully integrated, kitted out.

Mm-hmm. Amazing, uh, sites that. Uh, you know, have a lot more funding than us and a lot more time, you know, again, we got a small amount of funding. We had a year originally to do the project, right. So you've gotta, again, what can you do in your year? Yeah. And so really what we, what I think it actually has done, it's more a psychological thing.

It's given a signal out to everyone who's involved in this space to say. Here's a place you can go, um, to make your own with limited restrictions, and do you want to do this, uh, acceleration of this message together, but with a, a local organization like us rather than, uh, just any organization that co-ops the message.

So ultimately what it's been, it's been a real, uh. Strong signal, I think out to the local business community to say, you know, if you are serious about ESG, if you're serious about climate and you want to tackle it, we've got companies now in the loop who could genuinely take away streams and turn it into valuable things.

And we've also, you know, we're creating jobs, we're creating awareness. So really I think it's, um, yeah, it's a nexus for a [00:20:00] lot of this new energy and this new economy around secular economy, specifically at a local level,

respective industry. We. Tended for and won, uh, quite a big co-location, industrial residential scheme.

Mm-hmm. And before we tended for it, we were advised by the local authority to go to Fish Island. Right. Because it is seen as the one place that successfully, this was 4, 4, 5 years ago. Right. Um, successfully integrated industry. Residential. Mm. How have the two communities, do you have the two communities mix?

Well, because it, a lot of talk about co-location. Mm. But it's not actually happening in many places. In terms of that, that mix, how's it working on

Fish Island? That's a great question. I, I, I think, I mean, my read of it, I think, I think it's, it's not as integrated as it could be. Mm-hmm. I definitely think. A lot of people who move into the area now, um, they

do so for that, don't they?

Surely they must expect, it'd be like moving next to Heathrow and saying there's too many planes. I mean, if you moved to Fish Island and complained about.

Yeah, like industrial. But I think there's like, I, [00:21:00] I mean this is, this is a classic psychological thing though, isn't it? It's like the thing we think we want versus what we end up getting.

You know? It's like I want to be near artists, but do I wanna be near artists at 2:00 AM when they're making a, making a scene? Mm-hmm. And that's not say that happens, but I think there's definitely like, and I think this is, again, this is, goes back to our reason for being is for us to constantly say. To have a unified social fabric.

In order to have these worlds combine, there needs to be local people who can speak across the various, uh, tables, you know, and, and break bread. And I think, you know, we brought back a, a, a local town hall, a non-politically affiliate town hall. Yeah. But the Hackney Wake town Hall with, um, a company called Wicker Award and, and Hackney Quest, who are two great.

Amazing, amazing local organizations. And again, that is just a, a world cafe forum for residents to come in and talk about what's happening in the local area problems and solve them together. So that's something where I see the long-term potential of that for us is to say, yeah. Or we can be more responsive to local needs in our spaces and also have that information for you through, [00:22:00] but it can also just be the human thing of you move into a local area and say, how do I meet people?

How do I, I don't like what's happening here. Am I missing something? You go to that place and a conversation can happen. Mm-hmm. And I think that there are lots of places for conversations to happen in Hackney Wick, and I think that is the thing which. Is genuinely unique about it, and I think it's what helps the, the worlds coexist.

But I think, um, but I think you, you would probably say to the light industrial community, they would say they feel that they've probably been Yeah. Used in many ways in order for these things that aren't supporting them to proliferate. Yeah. So I think that's where the tensions lie, and that's probably where the.

Yeah, the difficulties are

so looking forward. You, you mentioned you started near, um, silicon roundabout, old Street round, whatever, whatever we now, now call that area and it's, it's moved out. Yeah. I mean, what, what strikes me is when you go to the. Former Olympic Village, call it Olympic Village. Um, I mean frankly it's very expensive to live.

Um, and you look at here east and the [00:23:00] companies which are coming from there, um, I assume they are, you know, getting quite a lot of in investment. Uh, investment means money. Money means prices go up. Mm-hmm. Can for Sha and Hawick sustain this almost countercultural view, which people, a lot of people now outside looking in would think that's quite an area which is distinct.

Yeah. Uh, how's it going to. Remain affordable for the creative companies and the small startups that you've, you've mentioned?

Yeah. Well I think that, again, it's, it's why I think we are important. Mm-hmm. I think 'cause we can, we're kind of speaking truth to power a little bit. And you talked earlier about going around neighborhoods and seeing a lot of vacancy.

Yeah. We have that. You, you go around Fish Island today, uh, you'll see a lot of new developments that have got a lot of empty ground floor units that are just concrete gray boxes that have been there for maybe five, six years, even in, in some, in some cases. Um, so you would say arguably that's, it's gone in many ways.

People would go, well, if, if the area is that counterculture, why can't it come up with solutions for stuff like that? But it's out, it's out of the hands of the [00:24:00] counterculture. Yeah. But I still feel like it's an area where. For example, like our, our company, the Loop. Mm-hmm. All the things we've done, you know, they are genuinely radical, different things and they're happening there not by accident.

And so I think when you really go down to the people and you abstract all the stuff away mm-hmm. It, it will retain it because I think too many people care about the area and see the, the feel there. The air, the feel it in the air, you know, it's something that you can't really put your, uh, your mind to necessarily mm-hmm.

And articulate. But I think in terms of preserving it, it's, that's what our case has always been, is we're saying in order to preserve it. I think just, just building a new and delivering some commercial space and having it be, you know, policy compliant. Yeah. Isn't gonna keep the, the, the bleeding edge of our society there.

They will go to other places. Um, and I think I'm, to be genuinely honest, I even have conversations with our businesses who go, look, if [00:25:00] this goes I, I, I will go somewhere else. Like I'm a mobile company and I, I'm surviving, so I don't, I don't need here. I want here. Yeah. But only under certain terms. And so I think that's the, that's the signal that we keep sending out is.

In order for this stuff to be preserved, uh, that that needs to be heard. Mm-hmm. And it needs to be heard quite quickly. 'cause I think we've, we've come a long way in 10 years, uh, you know, 13 years, I guess, since the games now, which is crazy. Um, 2012. And there's a lot more development down the track. But again, the Hackney Wick Central Master Plan has, has done great for that.

'cause there's a couple of new developments around the station with Notting Hill Genesis. Yes. Yep. Bo Arts, uh, trust, uh, managing those. And we've had the Creative Land Trust who came about and did their first site in Hackney Wick, and that's been operating for a long time with mm-hmm. Cell studios and, and main yard.

So I think ultimately we are probably the best case of lots of different versions of this reality coming to pass. Yeah. And so, as long as we can. Can retain the conditions for that to happen. I think it still will. It's [00:26:00] just, I think that the next leg is to be a little bit more thoughtful about what those affordable workspace policies can do in respect to, I think they can do more for the, the social and the community component.

Mm-hmm. And that's where we are trying to evidence that essentially. Yeah.

So the Loop is working in Hackney? Absolutely. In Hackney. Where can that model be exported elsewhere in London, do you think? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

I actually, um. I had, uh, Andrew Kins, who used to be at the UCL Bartlett mm-hmm.

Institute for Architecture. And, and I, when I came back to London after being in Berlin, I was, I was still quite green then in terms of my like career. I think I was, I was more of a musician then still than I was a, wherever I am now. And he. Came to visit the Fish Island Village site. The, the campus I talked about the fashion campus and being an architect of, and be a very earl diet and thoughtful chap cut through the noise and just said, is this just a, a leveraged bet on London?

Essentially? Is there anything really like secret saucey about this? And I didn't have an answer for him then I, I really didn't. And, but I did say to [00:27:00] him, I said, if I was in Horncastle and you gave me a large plot of land and said, could you create a product which brings small business together? Brings local economy together.

Mm-hmm. Um. I think I could, I think I could do it. And I think being thoughtful about it now, I think it is. Uh, the thing that keeps coming to me is that many people when they come to the Loop and when they come and ask about the CDT and they don't know about the sector very much, they think that there's a version of us in every borough.

Yeah. They think we are like a political thing or we're something that's almost constituted and I have to tell him. It's really not a thing. Right. But I think it's gonna become more of a thing because I think too many people feel like their neighborhoods aren't, uh, working for them. Uh, their voice isn't heard and they're worried about their future.

And I think one of the key things when you worry about your future is, you know, what's, what's one of the key drivers? It's, it's the change in your neighborhood and, and what's changing It's buildings, it's assets. Mm-hmm. And I think with some control over that and some stewardship and some radical thought, I think it really can put people back at the heart of [00:28:00] it.

And once you do that, it's. What's the local need? And, and it doesn't have to be circular economy. Could be, but it could be anything. And I think the local community will decide. Yeah. And I think in 10, I always say like, I could see us doing something in health. I could see us something doing in housing and you know, it's just, just responding.

And I think it just, it requires, um, yeah, really empowered people to, you know, feel like they have agency to come together and once they do and can kind of commit the time, I think, uh, with the right kind of spiritual alignment, these things do tend to just. Come. But it's, it's a hard thing. It's really hard.

Like so this is, this is

a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Of work

and yeah. It's built off the backs of lots of people who are not being sp spoken about. Mm-hmm. And never will be. And they do almost probably wouldn't wanna be, but you know, they did it because it was selfless. Um, but the end product is it, people come to the loop and see this amazing thing, but it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's a long.

It's a long story. It's a committed thing, but I believe in people, and I believe that in local areas, there's lots of people like that. Wherever you go across the world as the country

[00:29:00] singer, Luke Brian says, most people are good. And I, I subscribe to that. I, I really do. There's a lot of people, we, we don't hear the good news.

There's that thing about, I just live the good news. Every day world would be a better, it's a negativity bias. Negativity. So I fully agree with that. But, so in five years time, where do you see. CDT where, where, where do you want it to be positioned and what do you want it to have achieved?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think for us, what we've learned over the past couple of years really is, um, is, is kind of how we, how we do what we do in, in the real world. I think for a long time it was, was sort something on paper. Mm-hmm. It's kind of ideological and I think it meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

And I think that last point's really important because I think it's not a fixed thing. I think what, what we're doing now is not necessarily how we're gonna do it. In five years, in 10 or in two months. I think the thing we do is we, you know, we want to, uh, we want more ownership and stewardship of space in Hackney Wick and Fish Island.

We're, we're also happy to kind of expand out and [00:30:00] educate as we go. So say we help an organization in another borough get planning, uh, it would be about, okay, well then this is how can we train up or work with the local area to then eventually take over something like this. But I think the key is that I think.

We are, we're really focused on, on climate and the circular economy. Mm-hmm. And I think it, it protects the light industrial future of the area because this, these spaces need to be loud and noisy and messy. Yeah. Uh, and it's something which I actually think can unify to your earlier point around the larger organizations in an area.

So, as you said, a place like here East, or the VNA or the B, B, C, you know, they have. ESG, they have CSR, they have things they wanna do, and we are about saying, well, we could build a local cluster mm-hmm. That can actually facilitate and, and solve those problems. And this virtuous loop kind of continues. So I think for us, I think we, we definitely have a kind of target of a certain amount of space that we'd like to have, uh, you know, be working with.

And I think really that the second order is how can we be more radical in [00:31:00] terms of. In those spaces, how does everyone involved in it have a material say in how it shapes and built and it's being much more considered about, um, yeah. Pressing against those kind of commercial models. Well, that was gonna

be my, so a lot of commercial projects that we work on, there is now requirement from a local authority for some form of affordable space, some form of community use, and it's.

A lot of people scratch their heads and think, well, we don't just want to give four desks away to people who live low. I mean, that is literally what some people think that means, and I get a fee half a time. The council would accept that as a lot of clients want to do a lot more than that and do the type of things you are talking about.

How, how should they approach this? How should they, let's say, to random sake. Lamb. Mm-hmm. If you're working in Lambeth, how would you, um, advise a developer who's got space mm-hmm. To think along the lines of what you are doing in hacking? Who should they engage with and how should they start that process?

That's a good question. Yeah. I, I think, um, well, I think that's, I really think [00:32:00] if you, if you sort of, well, there's one version of the, the extreme version would be like thinking about planning policy. Mm-hmm. And really like, effectively putting some guardrails in place, uh, in order to have these things be more, uh, easily liberated.

'cause I think, I think that's easily liberated is

a nice way

to say it. Yeah, it is. It's well intentioned, but restrictive, A lot of policy mm-hmm. Around this, I feel. Yeah. And, and, and to be, to be honest. I mean, we often get brought into, we spent a lot of time on a lot of conversations, on a lot of sites that go absolutely nowhere.

Yep. And we pay a heavy price. Mm-hmm. Uh, we're a massively constrained organization. We don't have the opportunity. Cost is massive for us of all of these things. And so. Uh, that's the thing I think that needs to change. I think you can't say we want all of that stuff to happen and the risk is born on the local people in the area.

You know, that, that's not the fair way to, to play it. Yeah. Um, because you are genuinely asking people to mostly give up their time for free, uh, and, uh, give up their knowledge for free. Mm-hmm. And that can't be, uh. I can't be [00:33:00] sugarcoated. So I think that's one critical way of, I think certainly affordable workspace policy, I think can do a lot more in the future and like mm-hmm.

You know, we're in Tower Hamlets now. They're just in the process, in the local plan reviewing their affordable workspace policy. And they were one of the first people that did the policy and they had a 10% for 10 years. 10% of the floor plate was their policy, which, you know, if you've ever run a business in Tower Hamlets, if I say I give you 10% below market rate, is that affordable?

No, no, no. So, uh, you know, you can go, okay, we'll go a little bit further. We do 40%. But to me that just feels a little bit like, well, that's a short term metric that's really easily measurable. Mm-hmm. Whereas for us, we say, well actually we can probably get a blended approach in a space, which does do some of those things and does do some of the really affordable stuff.

Mm-hmm. But actually just says. Give control to the local people to say how it runs and, and work it and, and, and sweat it in a way which is more meaningful. And I think that's the, the thing, if I was to say to another council, it's like, try to understand who the people in the area that Yes. Have the, the knowledge.

Mm-hmm. Because I think [00:34:00] that's something that's really critical is we're very blessed as a area and as, uh, as, yeah. As an area that we have people who have multi-decade experience in working with planners. Yeah. Doing viability studies are attached of the knowledge from working through the, um, Olympic

games.

Exactly. The build up to that must be immense. Alex

Russell, like Paul Reynolds, all these people in our organization who do this stuff at a very high bar, who have, you know, committed their time and their effort and their energy to help us as an organization be able to get to the point where we can win.

99 year leases and we can, uh, help people get through planning in a serious way and, and, and deliver something. So I think it's, it's about that capacity building and trying to understand who those people are in an area. Mm-hmm. Uh, and once you get those people around that, I think if you had a supporting policy, I think it would be something that could be easily liberated.

But I think it requires those two things in convergence to do it optimally in my mind. Yeah.

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for your. Thanks. Fascinating discussion. Thanks for having any future club nights for Mexicana coming up. [00:35:00] Oh

no, I'm too old

to go, so I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for our younger Listen.

Well if you'll do it with me then maybe we'll, uh, we, we'll make something happen. Brilliant. Thank you very much for your time. Stay Patrick. Thanks man. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you.