LBWF, lobbyists, and ‘partner’ companies: greasing the wheels of commerce or corporate capture?

For the past fifteen years or so, LBWF has worked with a variety of private developers and infrastructure engineers to radically reshape the borough’s built environment.

The formal relationships between these different parties of course are recorded in council minutes, contracts, press releases, and similar.

But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes as well, and to shed some light on these less overt interactions, the following looks at two brief case-studies.

The first is about lobbying, and its starting point is a short Linkedin comment that was posted by one Peter Bingle:

Why is this noteworthy?

Well, Peter Bingle is a director of the Terrapin Group, and one of the latter’s constituents is Terrapin Communications, which introduces itself as follows: 

‘Terrapin understands the London political scene. Our consultants are experienced advisers who are able to derisk large, complicated schemes at the start of the planning process and then work with clients to ensure a successful outcome…Terrapin has a superb track record of helping our clients achieve successful planning consents right across Greater London’.

And as for Mr. Bingle himself, his profile on the Terrapin Communications website includes the following:

‘Peter is one of the most experienced and respected public affairs practitioners. In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has advised many of the world’s leading companies. High profile clients have included BNFL, Camelot, HSBC, McDonalds and Permira.

In recent years Peter has focused on advising clients in the development sector. A former councillor in an inner city local authority, he now advises many of the leading developers and house builders. Peter’s political network has no peer’.

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that in contrast to these (albeit self-penned) fulsome testimonials, media coverage of Terrapin Communications and Mr. Bingle has not been universally positive. 

It’s true that in a profile for his OnLondon blog, the ex-Guardian journalist Dave Hill painted Mr. Bingle as some kind of guru.

But on the other hand, in 2017 a story in Vice, ‘The London Lobbyist with Ties to Billions of Pounds of Gentrification’, noted that Mr. Bingle was working for Lendlease, and questioned his relationship with councillors in Haringey, Kensington, Southwark, and Wandsworth; the next year, the Guardian picked up on the same theme (‘Homebuilders’ lobbyist pushed council leader to “sort” and speed planning’); and more recently, Mr. Bingle and ‘Terrapin’ were name checked in The Londoner’s investigation of then Council Leader Darren Rodwell’s difficulties in Barking and Dagenham (‘Collapsing balconies, West Ham tickets and a council that got very cosy with developers’).

However, putting these press stories to one side (and it is important to underline that none have suggested any degree of impropriety), what has Mr. Bingle been doing locally?

And here, the trail suddenly runs cold. He seems to have been employed to ease contract negotiations with LBWF more than once, and Mr. Hill elicited from him in passing his ‘high praise for Waltham Forest’. 

But which developers have employed him, and exactly what his work for them has entailed, is a mystery.

Perhaps he has been passing on the fruits of his experience, acting like a sports coach? Or perhaps, more ambitiously, he has been used to reach into the Town Hall, and attempt to win over councillors and senior officers? There’s no way of telling.

The second case study focuses on a different piece of the jigsaw, LBWF’s very close relationship with  some ‘partner’ companies, and the interchange of personnel that has ensued.

Marston (Holdings) Ltd. provides ‘a multitude of end-to-end services that support the implementation of public policy’, and counts amongst its subsidiaries Project Centre Ltd., ‘a design, engineering and landscape architecture consultancy’, and NSL Ltd., ‘a leading provider of outsourced business services to the public and private sectors…[including] comprehensive parking enforcement and street management solutions’.

All three have been awarded contracts with LBWF, some large, taking in road safety, Mini-Holland, parking enforcement, and professional engineering services, amongst other things, in what was recently described as ‘a decade long relationship’.

That’s the general background, but one detail that stands out is that the companies also all employ ex-LBWF senior staff. 

Thus, Keith Hanshaw, who was Director of Public Realm at LBWF is now Group Managing Director at Marston (Holdings), plus Managing Director at both NSL and Project Centre; Vala Valavan, who was Director of Highways and Traffic Management at LBWF is now Strategic Account Director at Project Centre; and Chris Harrison who was ‘Mini Holland Client Manager’ at LBWF is now Regional Director at Project Centre.

More interesting still is that in their new private sector guises each of this trio has been involved in promoting Mini-Holland type schemes to other local authorities, and moreover been explicitly aided in this endeavour by LBWF.

Thus, in 2016, Keith Hanshaw, then just two years into his Marston (Holdings) career, organised a tour round Waltham Forest to show representatives of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, ‘examples of cycle infrastructure’, an exercise that ended with a discussion at a local café attended by LBWF staff.

Subsequently writing about this on Linkedin under the heading ‘Mini-Holland goes down a treat with key clients’, Mr. Hanshaw noted: ‘we took the opportunity to showcase our work and that of our client (Waltham Forest) with other key clients across London’.

Eight years later, there was a similar, if much more grandiose, event.

‘Celebrating 10 Years of Enjoy Waltham Forest’ (the rebadged Mini-Holland) took place over two days in May, involved site visits and panel discussions; cost £200-£300 to attend (public sector delegates received a discount); and was sponsored by Project Centre and JB Riney, the big civil engineering and highway maintenance contractor, owned by Tarmac, which also had contracts with LBWF.

This time round, amongst the speakers scheduled to appear were the aforementioned Mr. Valavan and Mr. Harrison; Riney Managing Director Chris Hyde; LBWF CEO Linzi Roberts-Egan; LBWF Enjoy Waltham Forest Programme Lead Chris Proctor; LBWF Head of Sustainable Transport Jane Sherry; LBWF Air Quality and Environmental Protection Service Manager Christina Zervou; LBWF Director of Public Health Joe McDonnel; and, last but by no means least, LBWF Deputy Leader Clyde Loakes.

Again, while there is no suggestion of impropriety, something about these events doesn’t seem quite right.

For though LBWF no doubt reaped reputational benefits from its participation, the Marston companies alone had the opportunity to make money, specifically gain lucrative contracts with other London boroughs.

In conclusion, some will argue that lobbying and strong relationships with contractors are sensible and mutually advantageous ways of injecting expertise into deal-making.

By contrast, others will contend that what’s actually happening here is corporate capture, in other words private interests successfully using the public sector for their own ends. 

Adjudicating between these two, very different interpretations requires more evidence, but, as of today, there are certainly grounds for unease.