But what was one of the biggest challenges along the way, even though you aligned in such a, in such a way?

The most seminal moment in the whole thing, I mean, the, the obtaining the approvals, the, the, the zoning approvals was really, really difficult and really complex.

Again, that was slightly before my time.

Brilliant team who went through the process, process with the council, as I've just discussed, and, and got a, a fairly, um, extraordinary and fairly flexible planning permission.

But I think that planning permission was sort of secured in late 2007, ready to start constructing into 2008, and then the global financial crisis hit in September of 2008.

And remarkably, it didn't kill the scheme stone dead.

And that was largely because this was a privately run scheme, so this was not a public-private partnership in this case.

Yeah

We're not very comfortable with uncertainty or discovery.

I mean, I kind of have a little speech that I do when I'm talking to some of the investors when we're talking about large-scale urban regeneration.

And the normal way, the normal lens to look at it from an investment perspective is which of the traditional buckets does it sit in? Well, none.

And we can't quite define the end.

So that translates to risk, which means higher returns, which immediately kills any idea that you might ever invest in it because it doesn't work like that.

And I try to reframe it for them.

I don't know how successfully, but I try to reframe it in the context that when you're setting out on something that is 10, 15, maybe even 20 years in the making, the only certainties that you have are that the social, economic, political, technological, environmental conditions in which you are going to deliver this thing will change significantly over the course of your design and delivery operational period um and if we think it you know my reference point on that is king's cross and of course you know a lot changed over the life from 2000 to 2025 A lot changed.

Everyone knows it's tough, but... you know, how do we kind of move beyond, you know, we could sit here and talk about viability, we could talk about housing, we could talk about a number of different things related to some of the more human political aspects that we've kind of loosely touched on naturally through this conversation, but sort of stepping back from it all and the kind of, you know, how do you think we think about these generational type projects in the UK?

Mm

... kind of an ambition brief.

And then when you start to draw things, when you start to go to the next level of detail, you've got something to measure it against.

You've got some criteria to say, "Well, this was our ambition, therefore," or, "This was our, our ambition, therefore not." And so therefore you have much more grown-up conversations.

They're not nearly so emotional, not nearly so binary.

And through that process, you know, you've identified the areas you agree on.

That doesn't mean you agree on all the other stuff.

So I wonder, based not just on that experience, but using those examples, what distinguishes a master plan that's effective and that truly delivers, you know, better quality of life and a place that is human-centric and with people in mind versus one that is a bit more utopian and harder to deliver?