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Interview: David Joy


London and Continental Railways


We became involved in Stratford through winning the private fi nance initiative in 1996 to build the Channel Tunnel rail link and take over Eurostar. Part of the remit was to deliver regeneration for


the Department of Transport around the stations and to develop the stations. We confi rmed that we wanted a station at Stratford, on the basis of it being a good hub. Also, in business terms, it was useful for north-of-London Eurostar services that were planned at the time we took over Eurostar. Getting a station in Stratford was the fi rst move, the second was looking at how we could improve the development potential of the site. We were able to bridge over the existing rail link and provide a new development platform from which we could build up. It was very technical getting the site ready. Pretty soon afterwards we had a developer competition. Our model of development was to get the land together, make sure we had control of it, hold it as one and then fi nd commercial developers to do the development. We then prepared a planning application with


Chelsfi eld for Stratford City, submitted it in 2004, and won planning consent for the 1.25 million m2 Stratford City. We always thought that Stratford City would happen, by the major city centre being built and investment in the infrastructure. The 185,000m2


retail and leisure would be the driver to establish the new place and put in a


substantial amount of the infrastructure. We always thought it would happen to a 15–20-year timescale, so it had to be a fairly robust plan. When the Olympic bid was in, we were at the stage when the London tunnels were being bored through from Kings Cross to Stratford. We hadn’t yet put the tracks down so, when the Olympics assessment team came along, we took them through the tunnels in Land Rovers to show them that we had actually built the infrastructure to Stratford and that the UK was capable of delivering major infrastructure projects on time and on budget. We thought there would be a good chance of London getting the Olympics. Also the land around Stratford was degraded so there was a good opportunity to develop a wider area around the site. We were pleased when London won the bid. The designing and detailing of the schemes were done under the umbrella of the 2005 Stratford City planning consent. That included the masterplan and detailed plans for each building. The Olympics probably brought forward Stratford City by fi ve to six years; that was primarily on the push of getting the infrastructure done and speeding up the development of the Olympic Village and Westfi eld Stratford City so it could be up and running by the time the gates were opened. It’s been fantastic to see it develop so quickly. Westfi eld has done a very good job in delivering a very original Stratford City plan. And it seems to have worked – we never thought there would be a Prada in east London!


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