FUTURE CITIES FORUM

Aviva Investors has been speaking to Future Cities Forum about the Autumn Budget 2018, reacting to the Chancellor's promise of new funding to help boost our high streets in the UK. Senior Director, Helen Rainsford, who contributed to our forum at White City Place earlier this month, said: 'In our view a reduction in the rates levy for small firms will clearly be welcome and may alleviate some pressure on the smaller businesses but unless there is a widespread restructuring of

We are welcoming Gavin Miller, Director, MICA Architects to our November forum who will be speaking on creative and retail quarter developments. He will join TATE, the Stoke-on-Trent Cultural Partnership, Bexley Co, Vastint, Homes England and the National Infrastructure Commission at the Royal Arsenal Woolwich where a new performing arts centre and venue is being planned in the midst of the extensive residential and retail development. The future of creative and retail distri

Work has begun to develop an ambitious cultural and community programme as part of the massive Royal Docks regeneration scheme in East London. The Royal Docks Enterprise Zone has the potential to deliver 35,000 new jobs, 4,000 homes and more than £5 billion of inward investment by 2037/38. As London's only Enterprise Zone, the Royal Docks has a special government designation that means new business rates in the Zone are reserved and reinvested into the area. This will enable

Tate's Switch Building - Tate Modern, London It is with pleasure that we welcome Stephen Wingfield, Director of Finance and Estates at Tate to our creative districts discussions on 22nd November at the Royal Arsenal Woolwich. The Royal Dockyards were created on the Woolwich site 500 years ago by Henry the eighth, cannon manufacture began in 1696, and in time it became the biggest industrial complex in Europe, a walled city within a city with 100,000 scientists, armaments des

We are delighted that London City Airport's Director of Corporate Affairs, Liam McKay, will be speaking at our November forum to be held in the industrial buildings of Royal Arsenal Woolwich. Liam has been at the airport since 2013, reports directly to the CEO and oversees the airport's lobbying, political, business, community relations, communications, PR and policy development functions. He recently led the successful campaign for growth at LCY, with the £480 million infras

The international real estate organisation, Vastint, will be speaking at Future Cities Forum on 22nd November and we are delighted that Vastint Services UK Managing Director, Andrew Cobden will be discussing among other topics, the company's development at Sugar House Island in the East of London. The first phase of Sugar House Island has launched and comprises eight historic and new office buildings targeted at the creative industries. Vastint UK is committed to creating a t

Future Cities Forum ran a fascinating panel last week on the regeneration challenges faced by the owners of leading football, cricket and rugby clubs, their property and design advisers and their city authorities. Please read below and listen to the panel's experiences of working across local communities, in inner city, outer city and heritage settings on the full audio recording. Paula Carney of WYG, who worked on the planning for Wembley Park from 2002, said: 'The fundament

This was an exciting panel discussion about the future possibilities for place-making around stations with Liam Harrison, Market Director from SNC-Lavalin Atkins, TfL Commercial Development's Strategic Planning Adviser Stuart Robinson, Alex Reitman, Principal Project Manager - Master-planning at Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation and Richard Marsh, the Director over-seeing development and regeneration at Bristol Temple Quarter. There were questions asked around ho

Our final panel of the morning of 10th October Future Cities Forum looked at the issues of housing build for councils and social housing associations using modular and offsite construction. Please listen to our podcast above of the full debate involving Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistleton, Sue Foster of Lambeth Council, Steve Cole at Clarion Housing Group and Mauro Burgio from Bryden Wood. The discussion began with a description of the waste timber products from tulip wood in th

With the news that another high street chain 'Coast' has gone into administration, it was timely that we held our debate on the future of the high street this week in London with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's Deputy Director for Regeneration & Infrastructure, Rachel Fisher. This was part of our tenth Future Cities Forum which also looked at the impact of stadium and station led regeneration and of modern methods of construction. Please click on t