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Subject:
Meeting date:
Report to:
Report of:
Business and Employment Space in Hackney Wick and Fish Island
19 May 2015
Board
Anthony Hollingsworth, Director of Planning Policy and Decisions
This report will be considered in public
1.
SUMMARY
1.1. This report outlines the Legacy Corporation strategy and approach in relation to
employment land and business space, as discussed by Board Members at the
February Board meeting, in particular in relation to Hackney Wick and Fish Island. As
requested, the report sets out the approach to these matters as set out within the
policies of the Local Plan and how these policy objectives will be monitored.
1.2. The Local Plan includes policies on the location and maintenance of employment
floorspace, interim uses, low-cost and managed workspace and the specific
application of this Strategy within the Hackney Wick and Fish Island sub area. It
highlights that the policy approach has been built on the existing planning policy within
the respective Hackney Wick and Fish Island Area Action Plans and employment land
and business evidence that has subsequently been gathered. This approach has now
been tested through the Local Plan Examination process and the Planning Inspector’s
final report is expected imminently. A monitoring scheme has been developed to allow
the performance of the Local Plan strategy to be assessed and reviewed.
1.3. A Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for Hackney Wick and Fish Island is to be
prepared which is likely to include guidance on the application of the employment and
business related policies and design guidance on accommodating differing types of
workspace within mixed use development proposals. This report briefly summarises
the contribution that will be made in retaining and developing business space through
the development of the Hackney Wick Masterplan, along with the significant and
diverse employment and business space offer emerging at Here East.
1.4. The Board is asked to note the Legacy Corporation Local Plan policy position as a
strong and balanced framework for managing change in Hackney Wick and Fish Island
while promoting the growth of its economic base and seeks to build on its developing
character as a location with a wide mix of business and other employment space and
premises.
2.
RECOMMENDATION
2.1
The Board is asked to note the contents of this report.
3.
TIMING
3.1. This report was a requested by the Board at its February 2015 meeting for information
on the Legacy Corporation’s approach to business and employment space in Hackney
Wick and Fish Island.
4.
BACKGROUND
4.1. At the February 2015 Board meeting, Members discussed the issue of employment
land and business space within the Legacy Corporation area and in particular in
relation to such space within Hackney Wick and Fish Island. This report summarises
the Legacy Corporation’s policy and approach in this respect, in particular how this is
reflected within the Local Plan, and how this is will be monitored over time. The report
also outlines the wider approach to achieving a wide mix of business space through
the delivery activities of the Legacy Corporation.
4.2. The Local Plan is in the closing stages of its production with the Examination Public
Hearings having taken place in March 2015 and the report of the Planning Inspector
who examined the Local Plan expected in June 2015. It is currently anticipated that the
Board will be asked to adopt the final version of the Local Plan at its meeting in July
2015. This will then become the formal planning strategy for the area and will contain
the planning policies against which development proposals will be developed and
assessed.
Local Plan Employment Policies
4.3. Developing and growing the existing economic base and capitalising on the
opportunities for introducing new economic activity and business comprise one of the
most important elements of the overall Spatial Planning Strategy for the Legacy
Corporation area. The Local Plan identifies and protects a number of land areas for
employment uses including business space, industrial activity and retail and other town
centre type uses. Policies and site specific proposals also indicate where mixed use
development, including business and other employment space will be required in order
for development proposals to be acceptable.
4.4. The following Local Plan policies are relevant:
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Policy B.1 Location and Maintenance of employment floorspaces.
Policy B.3 Creating vitality through interim uses.
Policy B.4 Providing low cost and managed workspace.
Policy 1.1 Managing Change in Hackney Wick and Fish Island.
4.5. The overall approach is to:

Protect the employment function of employment land designated as Strategic
Industrial Land (SIL), Locally Significant Industrial Sites (LSIS) and Other Industrial
Locations (OIL). Except in OIL areas, only industrial type uses are seen as
acceptable. In OIL’s an element of non-business use such as residential may be
seen as acceptable but the current balance of employment uses are expected to
be maintained and predominate.

Even where development proposals come forward in areas outside of these
designated ‘employment clusters’ on land with existing business uses in place
(including where the site is within an ‘OIL’ designation), the policies require that
employment floorspace is either retained or re-provided, with a range of tests and
requirements that need to be met where it is proposed that existing business space
is replaced or lost. Where existing premises are proposed to be lost then it is
required that evidence is provided that these are not successfully marketable for
the existing business use and where existing businesses would lose their premises
as a result of the proposal for redevelopment, relocation strategies will be required
to show how those businesses can be suitably accommodated within the nearby
area. In summary, the overall amounts of existing business floorspace will be either
protected or reprovided. This retention and reprovision approach complements
allocated development locations such as Here East and The International Quarter
(TIQ) which will deliver significant quantities of new employment space and grow
the LLDC area economy.
4.6. Change outside the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park area, for example in Fish Island,
has been underway now for some time, with the current borough Local Plans having
formalised the release of significant elements of Strategic Industrial Land and the
permitting of a number of residential, mixed-use or ‘live-work’ schemes, some of a
significant scale. The Local Plan has been prepared in the context of these existing
plans with an updated evidence base, including a business survey and an employment
land review. This evidence base has led to the development of the policy approach
within the LLDC Local Plan that seeks to retain and develop the unique character of
the Hackney Wick and Fish Island areas and to do so in a way that retains and further
diversifies the business and wider employment mix in the area. The approach
reinforces Hackney Wick and Fish Island as a finer grained character with smaller
scale employment spaces, in contrast to the large floorplate office offer emerging
within and around the Metropolitan Centre at Stratford (such as TIQ). This approach
aims to ensure that the needs of the wide range of existing businesses within the area
can be met as well as provide potential for economic expansion and diversification.
4.7. The overall approach to planning for Hackney Wick and Fish Island, in building on the
previous plans for the area, has now been tested through the Local Plan Examination
process. The Plan seeks to strike the right balance between protecting existing
business space provision, promoting new provision of such space and achieving a
significant contribution to meeting the local housing need and London Plan housing
targets for this area. It should be noted that both the London Boroughs of Hackney and
Tower Hamlets have expressed support for the approach to employment land and
retention and promotion of employment uses through the Local Plan consultation
processes.
4.8. While some landowners and developers have challenged this balance of approach in
the Local Plan through the Examination process, it is not anticipated that this will result
in any significant change to the Plans strategy or policies in its final form. The Local
Plan will therefore provide a robust framework for the protection of existing floorspace
and the delivery of new employment opportunities in a manner that is designed to be
more specific than previous policy approaches both in terms of allocation of sites and
the related business floorspace requirements. As a result, the Local Plan will continue
to require the provision of meaningful levels and appropriate types of business space
within emerging mixed use development proposals and, within employment land
designations, resist the introduction of non-employment uses.
4.9. A Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) is planned for the Hackney Wick and Fish
Island area which will provide further guidance on the application of policies within the
Local Plan within this area. It is intended that this will include guidance on the
application of the employment and business related policies and is likely to include
design guidance on accommodating differing types of workspace within mixed use
development proposals. Board approval of the draft of this SPD would be sought
before formal public consultation is undertaken.
4.10. Indications are that the mixed-use schemes which are now being brought forward by
landowners and developers are responding to the Local Plan policies through the
inclusion of work spaces of a form and type that will help meet the Local Plan
aspirations and that will be appropriate for the types of businesses that are becoming
characteristic of the area.
Monitoring of the Local Plan (business space changes)
4.11. Board Members requested information about how business floorspace would be
monitored by the Legacy Corporation. The Local Plan includes a specific monitoring
regime that will provide an annual update to the Board on information related to a
range of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Appendix 1 to this report outlines the
elements of the KPI Monitoring Scheme that relate to the monitoring of employment
and business within the Legacy Corporation area which includes a monitoring of the
changes in the quantum of the different B Class uses compared to a 2015 baseline.
This information will be contained within the annual Planning Authority Monitoring
Report, with the report for 2015 being presented to the Board in January 2016.
Ultimately, the monitoring of the Local Plan KPI’s will feed into future review of the
policies and proposals within it, with a full review of the Local Plan identified to begin in
2018/19. At this point a full evidence base review will also take place, and where it is
necessary to update studies such as the Employment Land Review, these larger scale
elements of work will then be commissioned.
The approach to the Hackney Wick Masterplan
4.12. The Legacy Corporation’s emerging masterplan for the Hackney Wick Neighbourhood
Centre proposes a wide range of workspace that supports the area’s creative and
business communities and aims to increase the economic activity in the area, as well
as providing much needed homes. The proposals are based on an equivalent level of
employment floorspace, which means that all current employment space will be reprovided, albeit some of it in a different form, as the new mix of uses will need to be
compatible with residential.
4.13. The Legacy Corporation is working with local businesses within the masterplan area to
understand their future accommodation needs. However, it will be difficult to
accommodate industrial or distribution uses within this kind of centre due to servicing
and operational issues such as noise. A relocation strategy is being prepared
alongside the proposals, to tie in with the Local Plan policies.
The business offer at Here East
4.14. Here East will provide 1.2m sq ft of commercial space in the former Olympic Press and
Broadcast Centres. In addition to the well-publicised occupiers such as BT Sport,
Loughborough University, and Hackney Community College, the scheme will provide a
wide range of business space aimed at supporting economic growth in the area. This
ranges from flexible co-working space and managed incubation services aimed at
innovation businesses and creative start-ups; studios and offices from 1000-5000 sq ft
on flexible lease terms; to larger workspaces aimed at more established businesses.
Wider Business Support activity
4.15. The Legacy Corporation is committed to promoting growth in the local economy by
boosting the competitiveness of east London-based SMEs. The approach is based on
supporting SMEs to overcome multiple barriers to winning contracts starting with
procurement and moving through to delivery.
4.16. The Corporation uses its procurements to secure commitments from Park businesses
to diversify their supply chains, cascade opportunities to local SMEs and engage in
business-to-business capacity-building programmes. These commitments are
contractualised and the Legacy Corporation then works closely with Park businesses
both to ensure their buying practices facilitate access for local firms to emerging
opportunities, as well as helping to source fit-to-supply SMEs that can competitively
bid for works.
4.17. Business support provision is tailored so that it caters for the specific sectoral
requirements of the local business base. Therefore, following its role as a matchfunder in the ERDF-funded Fit for Legacy supplier engagement project, the Legacy
Corporation is now commissioning a specific business support project that will:
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Work with construction and FM businesses on the Park and support them make
opportunities available to local firms
Source local SMEs that are fit-to-supply for those opportunities
4.18. In addition, with the proliferation of cultural and creative industries surrounding the
Park, particularly in Hackney Wick and Fish Island, the Legacy Corporation is funding
a project through the Echo time-bank scheme to provide enterprise support through a
shared economy model. The programme will provide businesses in the food and
creative sectors with a series of master classes that support enterprise development.
5.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
5.1. There are no direct financial implications related to the issues within this report. The
financial implications related to the specific activities that are referenced have been
considered in relation to the Boards specific approval for these where relevant.
6.
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
6.1. There are no direct legal implications related to the contents of this report. The legal
implications related to the specific activities that are referenced have been considered
in relation to the Boards specific approval for these where relevant.
7.
PRIORITY THEMES
7.1. The Legacy Corporation is continuing the priority themes set by its predecessor the
Olympic Park Legacy Company. These are: Promoting convergence and community
participation; Championing equalities and inclusion; Ensuring high quality design;
Ensuring environmental sustainability.
8.
CONCLUSION
8.1. The Board is asked to note the Legacy Corporation Local Plan policy position that sets
a strong and balanced framework for managing change in Hackney Wick and Fish
Island while promoting the growth of the area’s economic base and seeking to build on
its developing character as a location with a wide mix of business and other
employment space and premises, with some areas protected exclusively for
employment uses and others for a mix that has a strong business component
alongside new residential development in mixed use schemes. This is reinforced by
the emerging Hackney Wick Masterplan work which is seeking to incorporate an
equivalent level of employment floorspace in comparison to the existing alongside the
delivery of new homes and the creation of the core of the new neighbourhood centre.
Here East is also beginning to provide a significant quantum of new flexible, small
scale business space, including affordable and managed workspace, alongside the
major floorspace users such as BT Sport. Taken as a whole this provides a strong
strategy for the managed change of the area that reinforces the distinctiveness of
Hackney Wick and Fish Island as a significant employment resource and a major
contributor to the local and wider London economy.
9.
APPENDICES
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Appendix 1: Relevant elements of the Local Plan KPI Monitoring Scheme
Appendix 2: Extract from the Local Plan Key Diagram
Appendix 3: Examples of workspaces in HWFI
List of Background Papers:
Legacy Corporation Publication Local Plan (August 2014) with associated published
modifications.
Legacy Corporation Local Economy Study Part A - Business Survey, May 2014
Legacy Corporation Area Employment Land Review, May 2014
Report originator:
Telephone:
Email:
Alex Savine
0203 288 8821
[email protected]