Peel Holdings property director Peter Nears spoke to delegates at the Thames Gateway Forum in London Docklands today

He warned that a lack of unity between the Thames Gateway Strategy, the Regional Spatial Strategy and the local development frameworks would result in a lack of development.
‘If these can coincide in their message, this will enable us to plan ahead with the agencies. We need their policies to be mutually supportive.’ Said Nears

‘We want a program for dealing with long-term returns and this will be bought about by the provision of certainty in planning. It is bewildering the number of documents being produced at the moment.’ He continued.

‘There is a key role for the development agencies to pull together and embed a particular strategy.’

Also speaking at the forum, chair of the all party Olympic and Paralympics Group in Parliament, Derek Wyatt MP said one solution, at least in terms of development in the areas surrounding the 2012 Olympic Games, would be to appoint a secretary of state responsible for the Olympics and the built legacy that follows.

Peel is a Manchester-based company with £4bn of assets under management but has limited exposure in the south of the country except for a stake in the English Cities fund with English Partnerships and control over Sheerness and Chatham ports.