Senior figures from London's key estates and villages joined a Martin’s Properties’ roundtable discussion chaired by CoStar News managing editor Paul Norman to discuss their long-term strategies for ensuring they remain relevant.

The panel discussed the priorities for some of the capital's oldest estates –The Crown Estate, Eyre Estates, South Kensington Estates, Sloane Stanley and Martin’s Properties' Chelsea and Sloane Square holdings – as well as London’s newest in the form of Battersea Power Station and the King’s Road Partnership. Topics included protecting London’s estates for their owners and the capital, and ensuring their post pandemic revival, planning challenges and responding to London’s environmental, social and governance agenda.

The panel comprised: Richard Bourne, chief executive, Martin’s Properties; Harriett Renny, leasing director, Battersea Power Station; Paul Norman, managing editor, Europe, CoStar News; Steven Medway, chief executive, King's Road Partnership and Knightsbridge BID; Sarah McLaren, customer partnership manager, hospitality & culture, Crown Estate; Sarah Slater, chief executive, Eyre Estate; Hannah Grievson, property director, Sloane Stanley.

The Crown Estate acts on behalf of the reigning monarch, managing their property portfolio. This includes some of London’s largest estates in the West End, notably the shopping and leisure destination Regent Street.

Sarah McLaren, in the newly created role of customer partnership manager for hospitality and culture, said there has been a shift in focus recently as it looks to protect the assets. “We are evolving our vision to create new districts that foster vibrant and diverse environments that can remain resilient and relevant. The shift from retail consumption has been towards customer experience and a lifestyle mindset. A greater emphasis on expanding and broadening our hospitality and culture offer is a key part of this journey.”

McLaren said key will be to remain agile and continue its collaboration with partners of a similar mindset, particularly those that align with the estate’s sustainability values. Partners include Norges, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and Canadian investment giant Oxford Properties.

Hannah Grievson, Sloane Stanley’s property director, said the estate she focuses on, which covers an even split of commercial and residential properties to the west of the King’s Road and Fulham Road in west London, has benefited from measures that were put in place ahead of the pandemic. She cites Sloane Stanley;s success in recent years in supporting customers and occupiers, particularly changes that were made to the structure of its commercial leases. “We were one of the forerunners of the ‘pop-up’. These kept the area busy and alive through the pandemic. We have always tried to adapt to what the customer requires. By encouraging people to take shorter leases we have been able to bring new exciting brands to the area for the benefit of our locale and community.”

Grievson said pop-up tenants are very engaged and provide a lot of research Sloane Stanley can use to shape its strategy. “Recent feedback from our pop-ups shows us that tourists are back.” Over the same period Sloane Stanley has seen its houses in multiple occupation residential portfolio thrive, Grievson says, with waiting lists for its properties. "Through working hand-in-hand with our commercial clients, we can maintain and serve the established community."

For Tim Butler, managing director of South Kensington Estates, protecting the estate he looks after, spanning parts of South Kensington and Knightsbridge, takes in how the family owners can continue to pass it on intact to descendants, with a critical part of the work related to reviewing inheritance tax demands.

Protection also means ensuring London’s estates are seen as a power for good and do not become a political target. “We need to show the value we bring to society through our critical mass which smaller land ownership cannot deliver, such as placemaking.” Like Grievson, Butler sees shorter leases as critical as well as the exclusion of service charges in leases to attract new customers. “Our strategy really focuses on what our customers want and working with them so that they can grow as a business through our estate.”

Moving north to St John’s Wood, the Eyre Estate, another of London’s oldest estates, and the creator of the first garden suburb and one-time owner of the home of English cricket, Lord's Cricket Ground, has faced challenges through a loss of scale due to leasehold reforms and death taxes. Sarah Slater sees her role as chief executive as one of stewardship to protect the heritage of the primary residential portfolio and ensure that the properties are still relevant to the way of living today and for future generations.

From a residential perspective the Eyre Estate has benefited from extending its leases and now offering a new norm of two- to three-year leases. A challenge for Slater is the pepperpot nature of the portfolio. This has been overcome through working collaboratively with local stakeholders. "Working with local partners we have tried to stitch together an ecosystem to create a fantastic environment and place for people to live.”

Heading south to Chelsea, panel host Richard Bourne, chief executive of Martin’s Properties, oversees a portfolio with roots in the area that date back over 75 years. Much of Bourne’s work has been to diversify the retail-focused Chelsea portfolio while contributing as one of the founding partners of the King’s Road Partnership.

The partnership looks to collaborate with the major landlords in the area to create a destination that complements its history as one of the capital's retail and fashion hotspots, while also being safe and clean, with public realm that appeals to locals and visitors. The King’s Road fared better than its London counterparts during the pandemic and bounced back sooner, Bourne says, thanks to the affluent local resident base who remained loyal throughout, coupled with a strong collaborative relationship between property owners and customers.

He says the restaurant businesses in particular swiftly adapted to a takeaway offering and alfresco dining. On a micro level, Martin’s Properties is focused on attracting exciting new brands to the area interspersed with restaurants and cultural pieces. "We want to be avant garde and at the forefront of high street experience.”

Working closely with Martin’s Properties, Steve Medway, CEO of the King’s Road Partnership and Knightsbridge business improvement district, began work on repositioning the King’s Road five years ago.

An £1 million investment into rebranding and raising the profile of the King’s Road is paying dividends, he says, with strong interest from new brands and businesses creating flagship stores in the area. Medway also oversees the Knightsbridge Partnership which has faced challenges over recent years thanks predominantly to a lack of international shoppers. Across both roles the mission is to “pull together stakeholders to create one vision to make an area the best as it can be", Medway says.

Harriett Renny is leasing director at the self-proclaimed “new kid on the block" Battersea Power Station, which opened for business last year after decades of work aimed at regenerating the site. It is London’s most iconic new development, and its Malaysian owners have needed a clear strategy to succeed, particularly as leasing and momentum needed to continue during the pandemic.

“We have tried to create an ecosystem of residential, commercial and retail that anyone can come and enjoy," Renny said. She says there have been over 5 million visitors since opening in October, with the bedrock for this the independent community of retail and leisure operators and residents that began to form six years ago. Like many of the panellists, she cites changes in traditional lease structures alongside white-boxing units so they are ready for tenants to move in immediately as critical to attracting independent retailers.

She says Battersea Power Station was fortunate that it opened as the country looked to recover from lockdowns and the pandemic. She also points to a unique location south of the River Thames where many of the larger global brands had no representation, and a building people want to see.

The Battersea Power Station Development Company shared risk through turnover lease deals to ensure the right mix of tenants. Vital to the strategic vision of Battersea Power Station is curating the right tenant mix. "We will continue to look at attracting big and small brands,” says Renny, as is developing the famous building as a tourist attraction. "Whilst of course we want people to come and spend here, we want the chimney lift – Lift 109 – and the outside spaces to attract people to come down and enjoy the destination too.”

The importance of tenant curation and how one ownership can enable a longer-term view to be taken, rather than in an area like Oxford Street where a fractured ownership leads to shorter term decisions, was seen as critical by all panelists. Eyre Estates' Slater views the creation of public realm as vital to ensure people keep “spilling out onto the high street”.

For Slater and Grievson understanding of the estate's community is the vital ingredient. McLaren uses data and research across the Crown's portfolio to try to create something that is "‘globally distinct whilst locally relevant". For Bourne, understanding the right mix was vital alongside understanding the business models of occupiers. Bourne notes that for many younger consumers the provenance of the landlord and occupiers really matters, so it is focused on creating a mix of occupiers with shared ESG values that meet the requirements of a wide generational mix of consumer.

The South Kensington Estate has created two different destinations, Butler says. The proximity to South Kensington tube and London’s famous museums street brings hordes of tourists to Exhibition Road every day and Butler and his team cater for this via a diverse mix of food and beverage retailers. Further east on the Brompton Road, one of London’s first design districts has been created. The concept has been to group design retail businesses, particularly Italian furniture designers, together to help each other and it is proving a success. “We have now reached critical mass where brands are wanting to be here.”

The King’s Road BID alongside other London BIDs focuses on improving space in-between buildings, vital if the estates are to attract and retain footfall. Medway says historic relationships with local council administrations on planning matters and engaging with local communities helps identify “what they need and would like to see as well as working through perceived challenges together".

Bourne said planning changes can quickly become politically charged and emphasises the need to listen and balance the needs of residents, businesses and consumers. “Businesses need a local loyal catchment and residents want a vibrant daytime and evening economy where they can buy their commodities and enjoy the dining and cultural experience.”

McLaren identified the recent changes to planning that have seen all use classes transferable to the umbrella planning Class E as a positive. Slater and Butler identified agility of decision-making and a lack of planning resources as a main challenge across their residential portfolios.

All of the estates are building strategies focused on environmental, social and governance issues. Butler says there is a sense of duty for London estates. "We are stewards of enormous quantities of embodied carbon and we need to deal with this responsibly.” Grievson and Slater both see the estates as custodians of the heritage of their portfolios, something that is increasingly enabled through refurbishing and retrofitting and improving real estate efficiencies. From a social perspective Slater says estates need a “mixture of types and tenures to ensure that communities work together cohesively”.

McLaren identified a number of examples where the Crown has worked successfully with partners to address ESG. "We have re-valued our development pipeline under the microscope of our carbon priorities. We are working with customers such as Fallow [a restaurant in St James's] who align with our sustainability priorities and – from a public realm point of view – we have successfully worked with Westminster and TfL to plant trees and reduce the number of traffic lanes on Regent Street from four to two. From a social perspective, we are supporting our customers and communities with a series of job fairs and are developing new creative partnerships with the likes of BAFTA, which has collectively allowed us to pilot new ways of working, delivered new jobs and helped to remove barriers of entry.”

At Battersea Power Station Renny says there is a huge commitment from its shareholders to improving ESG, highlighted by the formation of a community team focused on the issue, the underground power station that in turn powers the Power Station and BASE, or the Battersea Academy of Skills and Employment, which offers training to locals. Medway has partnered with a similar scheme called Westminster Works which has created employment for over 100 people since its conception.

Bourne says he reports to a multi-generational board at Martin's Properties with a framework created that places ESG at the centre of everything the estate does. “For the environment we look to tackle the climate emergency by only working with green energy suppliers. We have implemented green lease clauses into our leases and have put into place a sustainable procurement procedure. On the social side we look to protect our culture and community and see being part of the King’s Road Partnership as key to this success. We place enormous value on the health and wellbeing of all staff and customers and have implemented programmes which address first aid and mental health.”