Friday 19 March 11.30am, Team P Zoomie: All pretence at dressing up gone. Even Posh Girl is in a hoodie. What Young Thruster’s wearing under that bilious green duvet is best not imagined. Nobody can really be bothered with work stuff.
Happily, Posh Girl has some excellent gossip. Her Dad (fading London property big-wig) is on a secret developers’ committee with a remit ‘to ensure relationships between council planners and developers stay productive’. Years ago, Daddy’s dining club nodded through initiatives such as paying councils to pay for more planners, as well as paying for ‘pre-planning advice’.
Result? No council fights that hard against a 40% increase in net lettable, do they? Come on! We’re all grown-ups here. So, by the time tedious ‘community consultation’ comes around, the plans are pretty much laid. Barring a howling mob of locals, they will be passed.
This mutually beneficial relationship is in danger of being disturbed by Westminster City Council, which in a fit of guilt over past relationships with Daddy’s guys, plans to force developers to speak to locals before coming to them. “Father is hopping mad,” says Posh Girl. “The work of decades reversed. They’re throwing us to the mob, he says.” We all laughed. Why, I’m not sure.
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