Programme

Expert speakers from academia, policy and practice will set the scene for open-ended round table workshops that touch on wider policy matters and point the way forward.

Chair: Ann Limb, CBE DL, Chair SE Midlands LEP

Speakers:

Peter Tyler,
 Professor in urban and regional economics in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

Patsy Dell, Assistant Director Strategic Planning, Infrastructure and the Economy, Hertfordshire County Council and former Head of Planning at both Cambridge and Oxford City Councils

Christian Wolmar, writer and broadcaster and leading commentator on 
transport, author of Are Trams Socialist? Why Britain Has No Transport Policy

Jenny Raggett, Transport Campaigner, Transport for New Homes funded by 
the Foundation for Integrated Transport

Gemma Burgess, Acting Director, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR)

Tom Holbrook, Architect, Director, 5th Studio, lead author of NIC Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford – Future Planning Options Project Final Report

Rebecca Tunstall, Professor Emerita of Housing Policy, University of York

Charles Crawford, Board Director, LDA Design

Venue:

Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge

Organised in collaboration by Lucy Cavendish College and the Edge

Downloads:

Debate notes

Introduction: Richard Lorch, former Editor of Building Research & Information

Chair:  Professor Flora Samuel, University of Reading

Speakers:

Professor Rohinton Emmanuel, Glasgow Caledonian University

Professor Michael Hebbert, UCL

Professor Sue Grimmond, University of Reading

Professor Phil Steadman, UCL

Respondees:

Julia Thrift, TCPA

Euan Mills, Future Cities Catapult

Venue:

Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), London Campus, Room 1.2, 40 - 48 Fashion Street, Spitalfields, London E1 6PX

Presentations and Notes available for download:

• Richard Lorch

• Rohinton Emmanuel

• Sue Grimmond

• Phil Steadman

• Michael Hebbert

• Julia Thrift

• ED86 Debate Notes

How do we effect real change?

Despite numerous reports and considerable effort since 1945 and, more recently, after the excellent reports from Latham (1994), Egan (1998), Wolstenholme (2009) and Farmer (2017) effecting change in the construction industry has proved problematic as a result of a culture of (reckless) lowest first-cost procurement and serial risk-dumping, on the advice of the legal profession, among others. Yet doing it differently is seen by most public (and many private) procurement officers as the biggest risk of all.

Now we have a comprehensive report on the key activity of procurement by Ann Bentley, RLB Global Chair and member of the Construction Leadership Council.Procuring for Value was published by the CLC in July as an action plan in support of the Construction Sector Deal.

There have been innovations around procurement in the past, including the NEC contracts, PPC 2000 and the IPInitiatives programme, supported by the Edge. In the future our departure from EU will undoubtedly change procurement practice again, possibly for the better. But right now the Edge sees this report as the game-changer we have been waiting for and idiscussed how we might drive real cultural change and reform the expensive and extraordinarily wasteful processes that constitute public procurement today.

Chair: Dr Matthew Tulley, Development and Property Services Director, Great Ormond Street Hospital

Speakers:

Ann Bentley, Chair of RLB, Board Member of CLC and author of the Procuring for value report
Louise Lado-Byrnes, IPInitiatives, Collaboration without barriers
Kevin Murray, Deputy Director & Head of Property and Construction, Crown Commercial ServicesAlan Crane, Construction Consultant & Past President CIOB

Venue:

The Building Centre, Store Street, London WC1E 7BT

Downloads:

Event invite

Event presentation deck

Event handout

The Future of the Built Environment Professions

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is 200 years old this year and the RICS 150. The RIBA will hold its bicentenary in 2034. All three institutions are rooted in the nineteenth century but have been undergoing continuous change since the day they were founded in necessary response to social, political and economic realities. All three are undoubtedly survivors, along with the professions they represent, yet there are now ever more voices questioning their future as social upheaval, automation and the impact of unbridled capitalism take their toll.

The Edge has been exploring the future of the professional model in the construction industry for many years; through its involvement with the proposals for a New Professionalism published in Building Research & Information in 2013, the subsequent Commission of Inquiry on the Future of Professionalism in 2014 and the publication of the Commission Report Collaboration for Change in 2015. Now, with the publication of a major new book, Professionalism for the Built Environment by Edge member Simon Foxell, the subject is back on the agenda.

How should the professions act to shape and secure their future, maintain and raise their standards of performance and extend their influence?  What must be done to meet emerging needs and circumstances? If the challenges are considerable, then so too are the opportunities.

The debate marked the launch of Professionalism for the Built Environment. Further details are available from Routledge here. A flyer giving a 25% online discount (=£26.24) can be downloaded here.

Chair: Stephen Hodder, Deputy Chair, Construction Industry Council

Speakers:

Simon Foxell, The Architects Practice and author of Professionalism for the Built Environment (2018)

Ed McCann, Expedition Engineering and ICE Vice-President

Caroline Buckingham, caroline buckingham architects and RIBA Vice President Practice & Profession

Louise Clarke, Berkeley Group

Venue:

FCBStudios, 20 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RG

Responding to the consultation on Environmental Principles and Governance

The current UK government is committed to be the first generation leaving the environment in a better state than it inherited it.
Leaving the EU will create a gap in regulations and governance, and DEFRA are currently holding a consultation on the issue, which closes on 2nd August (https://consult.defra.gov.uk/eu/environmental-principles-and-governance). The consultation offers a rare and welcome opportunity to rethink the UK’s environmental framework.
DEFRA’s proposals to rework the principles guiding our environmental policy, including the precautionary and ‘polluter pays’ principles, could have long-term and far-reaching consequences for the delivery of environmental objectives set out in the UK Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan and beyond. The proposals also raise questions about future interactions between the UK’s devolved nations, collaboration across government departments, and the role of the planning system.
This event was organised by the Edge to encourage collaboration and debate among built environment professionals and inform responses to the DEFRA consultation. It included short presentations on the current environmental framework and possible options post-Brexit, followed by views from a range of professionals. A number of response points were proposed for debate by the audience, with the intention of developing a draft collective response to the consultation.

Chair: Professor Maria Lee, Faculty of Law and co-director of the Centre for Law and the Environment, University College London

Overview of Defra Proposals and options: Dr Tom West, Law and Policy Advisor, Client Earth

Respondees:
- Richard Blyth, Head of Policy, RTPI
- Ben Brown, Policy Manager, Landscape Institute
- Ant Wilson, Sustainability & Building Engineering, AECOM

Response summary: Julie Godefroy, Head of Sustainable Development, CIBSE and the Edge

Venue: 2nd Floor Lecture Theatre, UCL Energy Institute, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN

Downloads:
Edge Debate 83 flyer- Where do we stand?

Response to DEFRA consultation, submitted 2nd August 2018 - Edge submission to DEFRA on Environmental Principles and Governance-180802

We have all been to a lot of housing debates where it all seems a bit intractable. The Edge felt the need to try something different…
The last great housing crisis was after the war. More than a market solution was needed and we got the iconoclastic 1947 Planning Act.

We have another great crisis that does not look like it is going to get solved by market forces alone. What should we do if we really believe providing enough houses at prices people can afford is not just a priority but the basis of future prosperity and stability?

Our debate imagined that the PM asked this question and created a task force to go away think the unthinkable – what would be today’s equivalent of the 1947 Planning Act?
We had a panel of experts, led by Gary Younge of the Guardian and son of Stevenage. We know what the market solution is and we can imagine what an extreme position might be. What we wanted from our panel is something between, unthinkable in terms of today’s politics, but nevertheless possible at a stretch and perhaps even practical.

Gary played the part of the cabinet minister charged with preparing The Plan and the audience the experts convened to offer ideas and criticism for the emerging policy to be presented to the Cabinet. The debate asked not whether ideas are unthinkable, but whether they are not unthinkable enough, or are they just too unthinkable. The debate was about finding workable, if, for some, unpalatable, escape routes from our current predicament.

Chair:
• Gary Younge, The Guardian

Speakers:
• Matt Leach, Chief Executive, Local Trust
• Nick Corbyn, Senior Development Manager, Land Securities
• Stuart Andrews, National Head of Planning & Infrastructure Consenting, Eversheds
• Vicky Pryce, Board member, Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr)
• Tom Mann, Director Residential Development, Savills
• Andrew Screen, Managing Director, Trade Risks Ltd
• Frances Coppola, Sheffield University

Venue: 
Eversheds Sutherland
1 Wood Street, London EC2V 7WS

The debate was run by the Edge and Eversheds.

Downloads:

Event invite

Event report

In the report, ’Collaboration for Change’ (2015) which was the outcome of the Edge inquiry into the future of the professions led by Paul Morrell, former Government Chief Construction Adviser, one of the key recommendations was on Ethics and the Public Interest and a Shared Code of Conduct’. While the professional institutions all require members to adhere to a code of ethics and have an obligation to serve the public interest, what this means in practice is not entirely clear. Since the report was published there has been increasing interest in this topic. Has the time come for a shared code of conduct across all our professional institutions working in the built environment with the obligations and responsibilities of both those commissioning and those providing services set out clearly? Is this a critical first step in ensuring that the built environment works as well as possible and in the interests of all, with a primary concern being the wellbeing of the wider world and society? We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

Chair:

Rowan Moore, architecture critic

Speakers:
Simon Foxell, The Architects Practice and The Edge
Paul Nash, PPCIOB
Liz Male, Liz Male Consulting
Philippa Foster Black CBE, Director, Institute of Business Ethics

The aim of the debate is to engage young professionals with the future of the industry, as they will have to deal with the challenges before us during their working lives. We will also invite the establishment’ to listen to their suggestions if the next 30 years are to lead to a sustainable future, more than we have achieved in the last few decades. The idea has grown from a range of discussions and concerns in the past year including skills gaps, retention of professionals in London and other cities (housing costs vs typical salaries in the construction industry), attitudes to housing quality and building performance etc. Some of these issues have been put into even sharper focus post-Grenfell. All in all, how can we become a better-forming industry which is more attractive to someone driven by quality, innovation, and sustainability? We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

Convened by Louise Clarke - Berkeley Homes and Julie Godefroy – Julie Godefroy Sustainability & the Edge

Chair:
Oliver Wainwright, Architecture and design critic, The Guardian

Speakers: 
Diana Sanchez, Socio-economist
Lydia Dutton, Co-Founder, Circular Economy Start-Up
Zohra Chiheb, Architect
Kavita Kumari, Sustainability, Health & Wellbeing Specialist
Ben Pritchard, Consultant
Nick Baker, Project Manager, Skanska

Responders
Ed McCann, Director Expedition Engineering & Vice President ICE
Jane Duncan, PPRIBA Chair of RIBA Fire Safety Advisory Group
Martin Gettings, Group Head of Sustainability, Canary Wharf Group
Tony Burton, Senior Partner Gardiner & Theobald

- See Oliver Wainwright discussing the debate here
- See Julie Godefroy discussing the debate here
- See Louise Clarke discussing the debate here
- See Ed McCann discussing the debate here

Following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower various investigative processes were set up and are still to report Without pre-empting the outcomes it would be fair to say that there appear to be some systemic problems in the construction industry and that it is vital that the industry responds with a serious look at how it can improve standards and quality of design, delivery, compliance and enforcement, accountability while overcoming the performance gap in use. This is not only as a collective professional duty, but also necessary to instil confidence in the building users. Quality in construction and the built environment has an impact across a broad spectrum from environmental performance and resource stewardship to human health and well-being. Have we abandoned too much red tape’? Do quality and regulations actually reinforce each other? How do we ensure that fit for purpose specifications agreed by the design team are delivered on site? How do we manage value engineering’? Are present procurement methods and costs a barrier to getting things right? Is it time for a quality campaign to bring back confidence in the industry? This session will explore the issues with a focus on housing, both new build and retrofit, for which the construction industry is now very challenged to deliver with long term quality and value. We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

Videos:
- See Peter Caplehorn discuss the debate here

In collaboration with the Good Homes Alliance

Chair:
Jane Duncan

Speakers:
Lynne Sullivan - LSA Studio, Chair Good Homes Alliance & the Edge
Richard Cook - Head of Residential Lendlease
Paula Higgins - Founder and CEO, Home Owners Alliance
Peter Caplehorn - Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director Construction Products Association
Robin Nicholson - Senior Partner Cullinan Studio & the Edge

The imbalances and inequalities of the housing market have been well documented. It is our collective responsibility to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 by 2030 to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing. Are we ignoring the economics of housing? Are there more effective ways of providing for all, retaining quality and delivering quantity? Is the British dream’ of homeownership a chimera? Do we have responsible leadership to overcome the problems? This session will explore challenging and new solutions to the problem. We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

Chair: 
Jane Briginshaw - Jane Briginshaw Associates & the Edge

Speakers: 
Polly Toynbee - journalist and writer
John East - Strategic Director Growth and Homes London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
David Roberts - Director Igloo
Claire O’Shaughnessy - Director Deloitte Real Estate

12.00 - 13.00 Ecobuild Conference