Toby Sadler
speaker
13 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 20 May
Toby Sadler’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
This is Talking Infrastructure, the podcast brought to you by Global Infrastructure Consultancy, ACOM. This time, we've taken the podcast on the road. This is the first of two we've recorded with our panel of experts in front of a live audience at the UK's Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum, more commonly known, of course, as UK Reef. I'm Toby Sadler. Welcome to Talking Infrastructure.
The panel took over the AECOM Cafe venue at UK Reef. The title, Building Places to Last, Placemaking and the New Towns Agenda. At its core, we were discussing what makes a thriving community and not just a housing scheme. Infrastructure-led planning and placemaking first design were front of mind, but also the question of how do we pay for it all?
We looked at public-private partnerships and asked how a then, now and next lens can help us learn from and not repeat the lessons of the past. On the panel, we had Patrick Clarke, Master Planning Lead at ACOM, Angela Barnicle, Director of City Development at Leeds City Council, Rob Chesworth, who's Head of Strategic Land at the Crown Estate, and Cathy Francis, Director for New Towns, Infrastructure and Housing Delivery at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
I've started by asking Patrick Clarke to define what the term placemaking means to him.
Angela, there's been a lot of work done in Leeds city centre over the last 10, 20 years. Do you feel the approach is evolving because of the sort of, I guess, aspirations you guys have spoken about in terms of placemaking? Do you find you're compromised? What's the Leeds approach at the moment?
But do you want to have that aspiration and do you want to have that access into a growing city? Okay, thank you. Robyn, when we talk about history there, the Crown Estate's got a fair bit of history. Does that influence your decision-making in terms of you're a long-term landowner, you can make decisions for the long-term future, or do you still feel the short-term pressures? Yeah, I think being a patient investor is one of our biggest advantages.
by the same issues around basic alignment with communities and politics that most people are. Great stuff. Cathy, I wonder, just to touch on, you mentioned it before, the New Towns Task Force recommendations now being accepted by government, also placemaking for priority locations and so on. How is that thinking translating to the delivery on the ground, the principles that will ultimately build these places that people will call home?
Patrick, I wonder, I mean, taking all of that in, there's a lot of things to consider when you're advising, when you're looking at new developments. I've been thinking, you know, obviously we've got Wellborn Garden Village in Hampshire, Brooklyn West Sussex as kind of examples. How did you solve these problems in those developments and other lessons from those that we can now look at and think, you know what, we can use this in the future too?
shift from the NHS into neighbourhood health, how do you get those investments really early on? A lot of that comes out of trust, I suppose, in the system and the people doing the developing. Rob, does that align with your priorities, I suppose, when you're looking to green light things? I want to just reflect a bit on the last two comments, to be slightly contentious.
Rob I wonder whether you feel there's more needs to be done to close that gap between sort of I guess public perception and lived experience whether we're making enough of headway in that area I think I'm going to struggle to build on the last answer to be honest I think there's a lot to be said for like if you talk about doing engagement you have to
Patrick, I know when we spoke about this before, you were looking at developments in not just 10, 20, 30 years. You were saying this needs to have like a 100-year legacy. How do you make sure that what we're building now is still valuable and is still a place that people want to call home in 100 years? Well, it has to be because iZine is such a long-term use. It's an end use. It's not like an office development or a retail park or anything.
on stuff that they might have felt more optimistic about in February. But with a fair wind, hopefully those things pass. Am I optimistic in the medium to longer term? I think you've got to be. Fair enough. Cathy, I wonder, just a quick thought for you, just on how you're looking at the volatility, because obviously you can't control it, but you need to be able to work with it. What's in your mind at the moment?
we'll be back next time with our second episode from uk reef exploring how to get northern powerhouse rail to construction but for now if you enjoyed this podcast then please like subscribe leave a review tell your friends and colleagues and of course feel free to plug it on social media until next time thank you very much and goodbye
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