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Will Jack be good for Lambeth development?

With its significant Thames-side presence and very good transport links into the southern parts of the borough, Lambeth will always attract development opportunities. Planning committee digest readers – and those developing in the borough – will have noticed that over the past couple of years, the borough’s planning committee has behaved increasingly erratically.

In a couple of weeks’ time, the borough will have a new leader. Will Jack Hopkins’ tenure lead to a more consistent approach? Here, we profile the borough’s new leader.

New leader elect, Jack Hopkins

Councillor Jack Hopkins will be formally elected as leader of the council on 13 February. Hopkins was the favourite and defeated challengers including planning cabinet member Matthew Bennett.

Now aged 38, Hopkins is a south Londoner who attended school in Catford before studying politics and international relations at Warwick University. When Labour regained control of Lambeth in 2006 Hopkins worked as a policy officer in Steve Reed’s leaders office, and as a strategic partnerships officer for the council, before moving to a similar job for Hackney council; his role involved advising the crime and disorder reduction partnership on working with the council.

At the 2010 election Hopkins gained a seat in Oval ward from the Liberal Democrats. He was chief whip of the Labour group for two years before being appointed cabinet member for public protection; when Lib Peck took over as leader his portfolio expanded and was renamed ‘safer and stronger neighbourhoods’. He was named Community Champion of the Year by the LGIU in 2014 for his work on the neighbourhood enhancement programme.

In a reshuffle after the 2014 election he moved to the jobs and growth portfolio, which included responsibility for regeneration and planning policy. His post included overseeing some projects which were massively controversial: a shipping container business park, ‘Pop Brixton’, was shifted away from food and environment projects towards entrepreneurship; he was criticised for not preventing Network Rail evicting businesses in Brixton Arches to make way for regeneration, and an attempt at a community-led affordable housing scheme on Somerleyton Road failed.

In April 2017 Hopkins unexpectedly stood down from the cabinet, announced that he would not be standing at the next council election, and subsequently set up in business. His company Good Planners Ltd consisted of Hopkins and Brandan Wilkinson, who had been a planning officer in Wandsworth; they had a contract to advise clients of Kinleigh Folkard and Hayward on planning issues.

In the run-up to the 2018 election, Hopkins reversed his decision to stand down and was re-elected in Oval ward. After the election he returned to the cabinet as deputy leader, taking on the jobs, skills and performance portfolio; having now been elected leader, Hopkins is currently winding up Good Planners Ltd.

As with many of the leading Labour councillors in Lambeth, Hopkins is on the Blairite wing of the Labour Party. He voted for Liz Kendall in the 2015 leadership election, and backed Owen Smith’s leadership challenge in 2016. His partner is Joanne Simpson, a fellow councillor who is vice-chair of the planning committee.

Reader Interactions

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What people say about us…

Smooth operation

Many thanks for last night: a very smooth operation!

Message was very welcome

Was a great result – especially to receive unanimous approval! Many thanks also for you and your team’s work in the run up to the committee. Getting those messages across really helped and was evident by the feedback given by members on both sides of the political spectrum … notably on the successfully engagement with residents and how the scheme responded accordingly. Message was very welcome!

On point

Harry was on point and has been the whole way through. We are all very chuffed. We are already preparing for another rather testing application on another site and you can be certain that we will engage you

Appreciated

Thanks Richard, your help has been much appreciated. Will let you know when the next job comes up!

Big guns!

Thanks for your and the team’s help. It was good to know we had the proverbial big guns in our armoury!

You kept calm

Many thanks for that: your team did very well, and kept a lot calmer than me! Matt was a sensible wise head, as was Alex, but he also made me think succinctly for the questions and how to answer, which is a great skill to try and acquire. Especially for someone as verbose as me!

A unanimous approval

Councillors praised both officers and the developer on their work and engagement.

A unanimous approval 5-0

With your help

Really pleased to hear the news this evening

With your help, we got it through !!!!

Best Regards!

Truly excellent example

Great news that we approved 60 houses on green belt last night.

It was tremendous that the Chair said that this was a “truly excellent example of good consultation…”

Gave me more confidence

Thank you – we were both somewhat surprised given the level of objections but in fact the committee hardly discussed the scheme at all before consenting it.

Thanks to your team for preparing me well for the committee which certainly gave me more confidence.

A big relief

Thank you. A big relief. As I am sure you can appreciate, we are delighted!

Your team did a great job, especially Matt who was integral.

I look forward to catching up soon.

Unanimous

196 flats approved unanimously, thanks to all involved.

Professional and effective

I wanted to thank you and all at Thorncliffe for managing the consultation process so professionally and effectively. This, without doubt, played a crucial role in gaining the approval.

Once again, all our thanks.

Was a good result

Cant remember the last time I got anything through unanimously!

Was a good result, it’s the right scheme for the site and of course we had a great team including yourselves working on it,

First class troops

Richard. Your troops did a first class job as always. Many thanks

Praise for communityUK

Well done for the way you presented tonight’s online consultation. I thought it was an excellent format.

Great result last night

I just wanted to say thank you again for all your help with the great result last night.

You have been tremendous and it is much appreciated.

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