In this special UKREiiF 2025 edition of Urban Forecast, co-hosts Oli Lowrie and Jon Ackroyd sit down with Alice Lester, Director for Neighbourhoods and Regeneration at Brent Council. Alice shares her journey from a geography student fascinated by cities to shaping one of London’s most ambitious regeneration areas. They explore the delicate balance between delivering much-needed homes and protecting local character, the evolving role of green infrastructure, and how policy can either unlock or stifle good development. With honest insights from the frontlines of planning and place-making, this episode is a must-listen for anyone invested in the future of our cities.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Alice’s early fascination with urban geography and how human behaviour is shaped by the built environment sparked her career in planning.
Her first ‘you had me at hello’ planning moment came atop Piccadilly Circus, inspecting air conditioning units behind the iconic Coca-Cola sign.
Place-making is not one-size-fits-all: successful development responds to the unique identity of each neighbourhood.
Brent’s regeneration, especially around Wembley Park, has been transformational, but local resistance highlights the need to bring communities along.
The planning system is increasingly overburdened, with competing requirements leaving little room to negotiate on affordable housing.
Green infrastructure and access to open space are now recognised as fundamental to health, happiness, and successful places.
The decline in car ownership, coupled with better public transport and cycling infrastructure, is reshaping London’s urban landscape.
Flexibility and pragmatism within local planning teams can help unlock stalled sites and drive delivery.
BEST MOMENTS
“If you’re annoying lots of people, you’re probably doing something right.”
“The thing we want most is affordable housing… but that’s the only thing left to negotiate.”
“You can’t just have a blueprint for development. You have to respond to the uniqueness of each place.”
“Living in London’s good… and it’ll just get even better in the future.”
VALUABLE RESOURCES
https://www.ackroydlowrie.com
https://www.harlow.gov.uk
EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT
Building Fairer Cities with Cllr Claire Holland
Harlow’s Regeneration Comeback | How Harlow Delivers More Homes with Cllr Dan Swords
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Jon Ackroyd and Oliver Lowrie, the visionary hosts of Urban Forecast, bring their expertise from leading their innovative practice, Ackroyd Lowrie. Known for pushing the boundaries in urban design, Jon and Oliver use their podcast to delve into the future of cities, sharing insights from their work on projects that emphasise sustainability, community, and transformative architecture. Through Urban Forecast, they engage listeners with discussions on how architecture and design shape urban living, aiming to inspire new ways of thinking about the spaces around us.
CONNECT & CONTACT
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the ongoing move away from car ownership in London will continue. Seems like a hard thing to disagree with, but there’s a long long backstory. I think you have to have a slightly different approach to what the community needs. What can you compromise on? Hang on a minute. Hi, I’m Alice and I’m corporate director for neighborhoods and regeneration at Bren Brent Council in Northwest London. Um, Alice, thank you so much for joining us at this uh UK Reef special episode. Um, and I’m going to start off with a a reflective question. Uh, so as Brent’s director for neighborhoods and regeneration, you’re at the heart of shaping places and policy. Um, but was there a moment in your past that shaped the way that you approach the role that you do today? I think when I think back even to my teenage years and was doing geography O level, I am that old. I know. I know. Um I was always interested in the urban geography bit, towns and cities and then as sort of my I did geography A level and I did geography at university and as my sort of interest in it uh it became crystallized what I was really interested in was how people behave in space. So I was interested in the sort of psychology of the way the built-in and unbuilt environment can impact on people’s behavior and choices. So that was sort of what got me interested in and led me to then go on and study town planning and then I got my first job at Westminster Council. And I do remember one significant moment where it was I hadn’t been there very long. So a few weeks it was when I was allowed out on my own for that, you know, for my first site visit on my own. And it was for some air conditioning units because that’s what you get when you’re a graduate planner at Westminster Council. Um they’re quite contentious though in Westminster probably, aren’t they? Yes. Yes, they probably are. Well, this one wasn’t contentious, but this one was located on the flat roof behind the Coca-Cola sign at Piccadilly Circus. Now, I I loved London. I you know, I was in my mid20s. It was a blast. It was a great place to work. So, that was my planning, you had me at hello moment really when I was on the flat rooftop looking at the site for some air conditioning units, but behind the Coca-Cola sign of Picazilly Circus. So, that you know, that sort of hooked me in, I suppose. And then since then, yes, I’ve just I’ve just been fortunate enough to work in some really interesting places. Always in London. I’ve I’ve lived in London since the early 80s now. Um, yeah, just some really interesting projects and it just got better and better. Air conditioning units to Wembley Park, you know. Did you get a view across the whole of London or were you just behind? No, it was just behind the signs. But, you know, wow, how exciting. I love I still love that. I still love climbing around on rooftops in London. It’s the best thing. Particularly when there’s no safety things. you have to climb out a roof line. Yeah, there’s some mad back wand around near some pools. There’s sort of this whole back landscape of roofs and things where you’ve got like no no roads, no anything. It’s quite a quite a weird one of the things, sorry. Now, in my current job in um in Brents, we have quite a lot of high buildings now. You know, we we do it’s the norm sort of 20 30 stories, but I’ve been fortunate enough to to see inside some of them. And of course, most of them have these lovely roof gardens now um you know, communal areas. So if you’re up there, I mean, the views across London are just I could look at them all day, you know, really good. Yeah. You wouldn’t want to be un on unattached on the top roof of one of those. That’s true. But I do think that has that’s something that has changed. I mean, we were talking just before about kind of things that have changed. I mean, I remember as a kid in London, there wasn’t many places you could get up high and look across London. That has completely changed in the last, you know, 20, 30 years that there’s accessible community spaces within buildings and also the tall buildings that are happening. you got quite a different different cityscape. So you you mentioned you worked at Westminster before. You worked at a number of different local authorities. I was just sort of interested in what is there any dots that join those together? Is there any principles that you’ve learned in your journey through different local authorities um that you can share with us? Um yes, so I worked at Westminster, then Camden, then Islington, and then I spent 10 years at the local government association running the planning advisory service, which meant working with local planning authorities all over the country, although not being a planner, but working with them. And then I’ve been at Brent since 2016. And I think um I think my overriding point would be places are very different. Even though you know there’s lots of similarities in in terms of development proposals, the places are different and you have to respond to their uniqueness. So even though Westminster County and Islington are all they’re all joining each other as you sort of move further out, you know, the communities are different and the needs are different. So you can’t just have um what’s a blueprint or what’s the word? I don’t know something standardized approach. Yeah, you have to which is why we have local local plan making really and even within a local plan I mean our local plan at Brent at the moment is very much focused around Brent as a composite of different places. The south of the burough is very very different from the north of the burough. Um you probably know that from the work that you’ve done in it. So so you have to have a slightly different approach to what the community needs. So I think whilst most of us who work in the sector we want to see good development happen. We want to facilitate it. We want more housing. You still have to be very aware of you know you know the street is in almost and the community that’s around it and the incoming community that will be coming into the new places as well. So you know we have some fundamental consistent principles about good planning or good growth as we might call it now. Uh but you know these these impacts can be very localized and you have to you have to take that into account. Te the next question very well though. Yeah. Yeah, which is so you know the transformation in Brent over the last two decades has been I would say almost without parallel in London in terms of the scale of it. Um but as planners like how do you balance the pressure to deliver housing economic growth and change with creating places that the people that already live there still want to live? Yeah. Oh, it’s really difficult. So it’s like balancing on the edge of a p top of a pin, I suppose. Um I mean planning is all about balancing. It’s all about taking the different needs, the different requirements, prioritizing and balancing them. And to a certain extent, you can’t please everybody all the time, but if you’re annoying lots of people, then you’re probably doing something right. Equally unhappy. No. Yeah. So, no, it’s really difficult. So, we, you know, we do get quite a lot of um resistance to some of our development proposals. Some people think so at Wembley Park which is where the biggest regeneration and longest standing regeneration area I think is in um in Brent all around the stadium. I mean that was first conceived of well long before I was working there but that that was sort of conceived when the stadium decided to redevelop there which was that was must have been 20 years ago that decision was made over 20 years ago possibly. Um anyway however it was quite a long I think it opened 20 years ago. It might have been. Yeah. So it was conceived of a long time before that and that but that was the trigger for for the some people at Brent Council to think what you could do with all of that land because it was industrial. I remember I went opening wasn’t it was the Jubilee the new Jubilee line extension they connected. Yeah I don’t know when that station opened but part of the that was the upgrade of the station. Um yeah, I went to Wembley when it was just first opened and it was unbelievable. Like if you go there now, it was just like singlestory warehouses and actually some totally undeveloped just like sort of you know some that had just been knocked down and left. Absolutely nothing there. And and I think I think it’s fantastic and it was actually in a recent Sunday Times list of the best places to live in the country. Um it was listed as one of those. So you know it has been absolutely transformational. But some some people are around they just they get annoyed at all the events that are happening because the event numbers are increasing. Um you know they think when is full up that there’s enough now. Uh I don’t personally I think there’s there’s still a lot more capacity and the regeneration there there is still more more to come. Um we have got integrated into the re into the uh developments a new medical center because residents always say well what about the doctor’s surgeries? Well, actually this has delivered a new doctor’s surgery. We did have a site allocated for a school, but actually capacity shows, we all know about falling school primary roles in London. So, we just don’t need one because we have capacity in nearby schools that we’ve got the LDO for all the entertainment service and leisure facilities. So, you know, existing and new residents have got access to all of that which just wasn’t there before and wouldn’t be there without the regeneration and the development. So, you know, in a context like that, it’s hard to imagine people being that resistant to more change cuz most of those people that are living there must have been living there recently like given that there was before that it was like light like light industrial. Anybody that lives there must be relatively new. Yes. But on the edges, you know, it’s not it’s not very far away from those old industrial estates and car parks that there are sort of long-standing residential and then the more suburban areas as you sort of go up the Met line um or the Jubilee line. What you’re saying is making me think of a couple of different things. one your first uh one of your first answers was about what you know what joins together different places and actually it was about the difference in a way it was about the kind of individuality or the or the localess of it we spoke to John Styles who’s in uh part of the council yeah part of the team and he’s got a really interesting view and he was talking about place shaping not just placem and the and the need to actually connect back to what’s already there in kind of good place making so it’s sort of about evolving those places as you go which I thought was a really interesting interesting way of going about that. So I thought with that in mind, what do you think makes great place making and you know are there any key ingredients magic sauce that you’ve from your years of experience seen? Oh well goodness that’s uh well what makes great places the pe the communities that live there. you know, if they’re not invested and enjoying their life. I know it’s difficult at the moment because there’s so much inappropriate housing that some people are having to live in, but you know, generally speaking, um it’s the community that lives there. It is the access to a range of facilities that that you need to live a good life. You know, I I don’t want to start talking about 15inute cities because that whole thing’s got a little bit hijacked, but but actually the principles of having easy access to the fundamentals that you need. Seems like a hard thing to disagree with, but I know and um and open space, you know, I do there’s a lot more evidence now, isn’t there, about the the health, the mental and physical health benefits of having access to open space and greenery. Um, I mean that is the one thing I sort of do regret about Wembley Park, although it is, you know, it’s a it’s a inner inner London urban area is if you want to go for a nice walk or a run or something. I mean, there’s lots and lots of trees and there are different bits of parks and things, but you know, there’s not that great big expanse, although they are about to finish a seven acre park at the moment, but um, you you’d have to go up to the reservoir, I suppose, or Frant Country Park, which is not that far away. I’m complaining about nothing really but um just when I’m walking around there when I’m at work in the office you know I sometimes think oh I wish I could see a bit more I think right though I do think there’s the structured position as we you know we’re pro development generally you know we’re architects we’re interested in that but the the need to bring in more green space and maybe some of the opportunities that changes in space changes in transport I know Yoly you’ve been talking about that that might create kind of more green space in the kind of public railway km of parking in London so If you do, we were talking about driverless cars before we start. This is why I keep wanging on about it, but the 35 square kilometers of space given over to parking that could disappear and be replaced with green, you know, planting on the side of each trees or Yeah. They’re very thin houses cuz they’re on the edge edge of roads, but yes, parking, I suppose, car parks. Yes. Yeah. Parking on the side of roads. You could get rid of that and you could replace them with 50-minute city seems a weird thing to get so angry about when people have. So, I think replace it with walkable cities and street trees. you know, start using that expression. Yeah, it’s just the sound bite of it. If you both people go, can I walk to the shop and can I have a street trees do so much more than, you know, just like having green infrastructure? If you start thinking about your landscape as infrastructure, you know, how do you connect nodes of planting so that you’re always within the shade of a tree? Like you can really transform the environment. I mean, we we have spent um some of our community infrastructure levy on trees. Yeah. you know because we see it as part of the urban infrastructure that is needed to make a place attractive and it has lots of other benefits as well to do with the I think it’s yeah I think it’s so important I think you know we were talking anecdotally before about happiness and that actually a lot of people in today’s society become less happy and I do think na nature greenery those kind of things has a huge positive impact on that and I think that we we are kind of maybe as designers and planners I have an obligation to try and do to really push that but I think that is becoming more integrated into planning. I I wouldn’t like to think what a reason for refusal might be that says you’re not making people happy enough or this will make people or you know do you know what I mean? I can’t see how it would be ever translated into a reason for refusal could give it a go. Yeah, I’ve probably seen a couple go. But I do I do think um because we know something much more about it now that it is being taken into account much more by designers and architects. You got the urban planning authorities. Yeah. biodiversity that’s not about happiness. I mean like it’s not but I’m saying there’s an integral connection between well this is my opinion is that how it’s very hard thing to judge how you make people but it’s hard to make policy out of it and I think that urban greening factor is really good example of like what do you want green cities how do you get it little bits of sedum on roofs you know the policy doesn’t quite give you what you’re trying we have in our um one of our supplementary planning documents the title of which has just left me but we it is about the quality of place and we have a quality of place framework work um which is embedded in the supplementary planning document and so developers are supposed to you know apply this sort of framework. It’s a round drawing with uh different indices on but it is about things like access to proximity to and access to open space and greenery and you know blue blue green infrastructure etc. I mean that’s a good point actually. You know we have quite a lot of developers that listen to the program in terms of if they were coming to your team would you have any recommendations or things not to do that you would you you’d share? Well, I s when lots of applicants talk about the difficulties in local authority planning sector and they want certainty and and I I do give a slightly simplistic answer, but it’s like um we have a planled system. We’ve got a plan. The more the closer you are your development to what the plan wants you to do, the more certainty you have, the quicker it will be dealt with and the more straightforward it will be. Now I know perfectly well that there are very few developments that tick every single relevant policy just because yeah there’s too too much. So you know there’s always a job which we sort of do collectively about working out what is the most important thing affordable housing by the way um and and what you can what you can compromise on. Actually I’ve got a point I’d like to make about that if I get a chance what can you compromise on? Hang on a minute. No, it’s just um so yeah, so my advice to developers is get as close to the local plan as you can and if you can’t then we want a good reason as to why not. The point I was going to make which is a bit of a sort of point about the national planning system I suppose is uh and I you know I’m I I have the planning service in my directorate but I’m not that close to particular schemes or anything anymore but there there are so many you will know about all the expectations that the planning system is supposed to deliver. When I started my career, it was about land use and design that um you know the delegated reports were a box on a on one side of A4. Um it was land land use and design and now there is so much more. Um I’m not necessarily saying that’s wrong because planning is a mechanism to deliver good quality, you know, good growth, good quality built environment. But my point is um there are there are so much that a developer has to do that is fixed and not negotiable. you know, the BNG, the carbon offsetting, um the uh community infrastructure levy, etc. that the thing that the only thing left to negotiate is on affordable housing or section 106 obligations, but affordable housing is the thing we want most, but that’s the thing that gets the focus of the discussions because of the impact on viability of all the other asks. It’s a really it’s a really good point because we, you know, we’ve been looking at the the start number of starts on site is significantly down across the capital, majorly down. And I do think many developers are citing the kind of landscape of legislation and you know all of these are well intended BNG and all the rest of it but actually the combination and is there a way to you know do you have any thoughts about how you could simplify that trying to keep keep the kernel of the important stuff while maybe getting more affordable housing because there’s not private development happening there’s also not affordable yeah uh housing happening so you got a kind of double whammy on the kind of already stretched Yeah. Yeah. Well, um I don’t know. I don’t want to start sort of ripping up legislation because it be a bit sort of off the cuff, but I just think there has there has to take a thorough look at what is it we want the planning system to deliver and recognizing that it just can’t reasonably deliver everything. You know, I also don’t think that the housing starts being down is anything to do with the planning system. No, it’s what building control I’m building safety regulations that viability and like I don’t think the plan like the viability is affected by planning as in the set of requirements for all the different I mean well yeah is there anything that planning can do that would improve that would turn the tap back on like it’s possible get better I mean I do think that does help going through the planning system that you’re still getting planning for stuff it’s just not getting started on site but it’s slow and costly and the contributions if you ask most developers is the SIL contributions, the section 106, the all the different legislations, all kind of well intended, environmental, um, you know, fire, everything else. The the combination means that your build cost has gone up in an already inflated market. So So the planning system could just deregulate. Well, I was just wondering if there’s more. It’s a difficult question, isn’t it? But the ultimate thing is, can you distill the key ingredients? we’ve kind of had an additive system of constantly putting on things or could you incentivize certain behaviors by not you know I mean I was reading um on the train on the way up here actually it’s a recent article by center for cities about the reforming the what they called anti-upply side and one and I hadn’t really thought about this but one one of the things was about um the minimum room size for a single person flat at 37 and their argument was that it’s unaffordable you know it’s just unaffordable and the renters can’t afford it. Um, so I don’t really agree with reducing the minimum minimum size by much because I don’t think people should be living in rabbit hutches. Co-living is a different model because you have all the other facilities. Why is it, it’s a good point. Why is co- livingiving different? Like cuz co-l livingiving is now established and you got this thing that is like essentially a hotel room and there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re designing them, but then you’ve got a big jump up to the next thing on the market. So you’ve got 18 square meters. That was their point. And then you jump up to 37 and that’s there’s nothing in between. That was exactly the point they were making. the same discussion with Paul about how pocket came along 20 years ago and innovated something that’s doesn’t align with policy at all. only one beds according to him or studios according to me and um and it doesn’t align to any local authority planning policy but they made it work and I think that the system needs to have flexibility to allow people to do different things to say I’m going to do co-l livingiving but with 2D or studios or whatever um but it doesn’t studios are two studios that are interconnected they have them in the Middle East I can’t remember what they’re called like a kind of like if you’re friends and you want them in New York as well. Yeah, I think it’s I don’t know actually I’m out of my You’re making this up again. No, two is an egg. I just can’t remember what it is. One of the other things that again I hadn’t really thought about cuz it’s so many years since I was in development management as a planning officer, but was about the dual aspect requirements and the way you know and they did the drawing of how you have to have these insets which just makes it more expensive and I’m again I’m not necessarily the right thing to relax that slightly. Yeah. 65% now it’s pretty hard to achieve. We were talking about this earlier and we always look, you know, often comes up and is a really good model which is the mansion block and actually a lot of that is single aspect and a really good quality home and I think the intention’s right with a dual aspect kind of approach because there is some terrible terrible kind of things being built but I think it’s too inflexible and I hope that’s and it’s hard when it’s north facing as well with north facing it’s hard when it’s all south you shouldn’t do it. I think like north facing single aspects being banned is a fair play, you know, whatever. That’s I can be I can be on board with that. But trying to get 65% on some sites just is really hard. I’ve got a particular site in mind at the moment where it’s a difficult, you know, it’s virtually impossible while it stops development in in that you need to have a a holistic view and and planners can do that sometimes by balancing all the different things, but they can be when the big policy, you know, if you’re against a policy in principle, then you start having issues. You know what I mean? And it’s harder and harder. But that’s I mean that’s the planer planners when the planners are doing their job well it’s to work with the team to tell them what bits they can ignore because you where you compromise and I think Brent are pretty good at that and you know I think other buyers could learn something from that. Well thank you I like to think we’re pragmatic because we we want to see things get built and they do get built and that you know that’s that’s a sort of testament is that you can see a lot has happened. Having said that we do still have some stored sites that we want to revisit to see if we can help. Well, so how can developers help you with there? How can they help with those stalled sites? Well, they they need to tell us what’s stalling. Yeah, I suppose. And then we can work around. And do you have quite an open door policy in terms of coming to see who would be the best person for them to come and approach? Um, well, probably the head of planning probably um David Glover if you’ve come across him or Jerry Anel who’s the director. Yeah. So, final question. Say me. Final question. This is this is a tough one. Uh so the you know the policies um and decisions that you’re making now will be translated into neighborhoods that are you know in 10 years time are up and running existing built out lived in. What you know what do you hope that those neighborhoods are like? Yeah. Happy places you want to be. Now I think um I mean we’re about to sort of embark on our local plan review so it’s a sort of timely for us to think about yeah what what things are going to be like in 10 years time. I think um I think there the ongoing move away from car ownership in London will continue. Um we were mentioning driverless cars earlier. So I don’t know I I’m doubtful whether they’ll be common on our streets by use members of the public by 10 years time. I think they’ll be used in industry and things but um we’ll we’ll see about that. But anyway, but they will come at some point, won’t they? That will come. So the ability to free up all of that parking space. Yeah. Oh, no. At home, domestic driveways and things as well as sort of car parks and on street parking, I think that could, you know, really transform the the landscape. Um, but but even without driverless cars, I think in London the I know we moan if we have to wait more than a couple of minutes for a tube train, but honestly, how lucky are we that, you know, we only have to wait a couple of minutes for a tube train. So, you know, the transport system in London, the Elizabeth line has been, you know, fantastic. Brent’s got 22 train stations, I think, within the bar. I think it’s got the most in London. So, you know, and and younger people just see a car as an expensive luxury really or or not a necessity. So, I think I think that um if we can get some if we can get the big London transport project, so the Baloo line upgrade and extension, Dockland railway extension and the West London orbital, which is really important for Brent. I think that will that will help free things up. A joined up cycle network would really help. A joined up cycle network. Yeah. So, that would be quite a lot. And if you go from one burough to the next and I’m not going to name them but some more forest isn’t it place to try this is very good and then you have to go through another burough that’s just south of it and suddenly like now I have I don’t know potholes everywhere and you’re improving there actually it needs a London wide need a London wide approach uh and a lot of money and then you would you know lots of people want to cycle but they’re actually scared of it that fear you have in Amsterdam where so I yeah so I think the environment will be more conducive to, you know, not getting in your car and driving. I think, uh, we touched on it earlier on. I think the whole health and well-being and access to sort of greenery and open space and community gardens, etc., will be, you know, better. Um, yeah, you know, I mean, living in London’s good. I think for me it’s good and um, it’ll just get even better in the future. Good. Well, thank you so much for your time. That was really great. And, uh, yeah, thank you for coming on the show. Pleasure. Thank you so much. [Music]