Robert W Service once wrote: ‘It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe.'

Balancing our place-shaping vision with our small grains of local resource is more than a
challenging task.
Croydon LBC has launched a major initiative for a £450m urban regeneration vehicle (URV), which will be formed with a private sector partner (PSP), based on 50/50 ownership, to develop out key sites of council-owned assets.    
The key benefit of the URV will be the ability for the council to retain more control over our key developments, and ensure they meet our regenerative aspirations for the borough. 
In the past, once assets were sold, the type and pace of development would largely be out of the council's hands, with only ‘planning' obligations as a means of influence and Section 106 gains adding to our grain store. The establishment of a URV will mean that the value of assets placed in the vehicle will be matched by the PSP's equivalent cash contribution, generating significant investment capital to fuel other regenerative programmes around the borough. In short, pump-priming a borough-wide regeneration programme. The URV offers future as well as current potential, since other sites can be added throughout the period of the partnership.
Croydon is experiencing one of the most dynamic regeneration and growth periods ever seen by any city in the UK, with more than £3.5bn of development in the pipeline. While in the past, Croydon might have had an image problem, developers, funding institutions investors and occupiers across all the property sectors are beginning to appreciate the potential of London's ‘third city'.  
In the words of William Blake: ‘Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.' n
Nathan Elvery is director of finance at Croydon LBC