2008 Yearbook

34 Y e a r b o o k 2 0 0 8 BUILDING · CONSERVATION INSTITUTE · OF · HISTORIC · but the promises made in Singapore included making this an inclusive games, a Green Games, and one that would be planned for the future as much as for the games period: no herd of white elephants. In those first months, for example, alongside the hard construction focus, members committed themselves to a sustainable development strategy with a target of recycling a minimum of 90 percent of materials from the site. Members are determined that ODA should not just comply with best practice but drive it. Other priority themes which apply across the whole programme are health and safety, employment and training, equality and inclusion, and design quality. The programme is large enough to make a real difference in the construction industry by setting standards in all these fields. I had been the first board secretary to the Heritage Lottery Fund so I had some idea what was required. My job is to understand how the board should work and to support members: a mixture of ensuring propriety and providing assistance, and, of course, recording meetings. In practice I am part nanny and part fly-on-the-wall, scribbling: definitely not a glamorous job, but fascinating to watch the programme develop. ODA was made the planning authority for the area of the Olympic Park on the same model as an urban development corporation with only development control powers. Given that the land falls within four different boroughs, some such arrangement was essential. The original planning permission for the park master plan was obtained in 2004 when the four planning committees met in different rooms at City Hall, with officers running between rooms. Our planning committee has two ODA board members, four local councillors (one nominated by each of the boroughs), and five independent members selected following advertisement. There is a planning decisions team with their own offices at Stratford, and their own legal advisers. Like any other planning committee, our meetings are held in public and are subject to all the usual planning rules. We usually meet at Stratford because it is close to the site and reasonably accessible for the public. I am the planning committee secretary. So there is some connection with my previous life. I still have my DipTP and, although planning and conservation legislation have been through at least a couple of revolutions since I quit, I can still speak the language. But how did I get here from there? It has been a series of happy accidents. I started my career at the Greater London Council, Historic Buildings Division, as a listed building consent officer walking the streets of Bloomsbury and the City of London, which I still love. The job was to look at buildings and talk to people and I learned a lot about both. When the GLC was abolished the division transferred to English Heritage and, in due course, I was lucky to follow my old GLC colleague, John Fidler across Regent Street and moved from walking around London, to driving around England; and from stopping people doing nasty things to buildings, to trying to persuade people to do nice things to them – by rescuing buildings at risk. We organised the first buildings at risk survey. As academic publisher to English Heritage I edited Conservation Bulletin, which proved great fun. That encouraged me to think about doing different things, and I was seconded to the Department of National Heritage (to learn what it looked like from the inside and take the news back to all of you out there). In Heritage Division I was responsible for the ‘frilly’ bits on the edge and enjoyed pushing through government funding to get Heritage Open Days started and helping invent a rather good EU funding scheme for heritage (killed off a couple of years later). I discovered one of the attractions of the civil service: moving around and learning new things, is a core competence. I had the advantage in a Department which has over 60 quangos (or NDPBs as we call them) that I understood something of that strange quangoland. So instead of returning to English Heritage I went off to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a couple of years. Back in the Department I worked with other Lottery bodies and helped invent Regional Cultural Consortiums (back to travelling around England and meeting some English Heritage staff) and even helped guide parts of the Greater London Authority Bill through Parliament, eg passing control of Trafalgar Square to the new Mayor. Suddenly I had turned into a real civil servant, developing policy on public service broadcasting and even international policy. Working for ODA, however, has brought me back to construction. When I was at GLC it was areas like Spitalfields and 18th century buildings. Now it is the East End and new buildings (though remember those Belfast trusses from King’s Yard, which need a home). I still hope I am helping keep London a great city. Illustration ©The Olympic Delivery Authority

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=