Northern boss homes in - Eamonn Boylan, corporate director, Homes and Communities Agency

Adam Branson, Regeneration & Renewal, 21 November 2008

Boylan: relishing Gateway project

Eamonn Boylan is packing his suitcase, figuratively if not literally. Currently deputy chief executive (regeneration) at Manchester City Council, Boylan has been appointed deputy chief executive and corporate director for new ventures and partnerships at super-quango the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), a career change that requires him to spend most of his working week in London.

As if that tongue-twister of a job title doesn't sound like enough to keep him occupied, Boylan will also be responsible for policy in the Thames Gateway, Europe's largest regeneration project and a notoriously unwieldy beast. When the HCA starts work next month, the agency will take charge of the Gateway project from the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is the HCA's sponsoring department.

Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive designate at the HCA, has talked about the agency having "single conversations" with local authorities about their plans for regeneration and development, and their needs for investment, although it has also been suggested by others that for practical reasons these conversations will have to take place with groups of councils in sub-regions.

But in an area such as the Thames Gateway, with its large number of sometimes overlapping public agencies - as well as two well established urban development corporations (UDCs) - how does Boylan think the single conversation model will work?

"The object of the single conversation is to be able to have an effective dialogue with those critical partners who will make a difference to a place," he says. "In the Gateway, we have a complicated delivery topography and there will be a process of alignment to enable an effective conversation to bring the relevant partners together."

So, if an area set for development has a council and a UDC within its boundaries, the single conversation will take place with leaders from both bodies. Or if, for instance, an area is likely to require London Development Agency funding on top of HCA investment, the LDA will have a seat at the table.

However, it could be that at least two of the organisations currently working in the Gateway will be removed from the picture. In an interview with the Local Government Chronicle earlier this year, Kerslake hinted that the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation and the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation could be axed when the HCA starts work. "(The UDC) might have had its place in the Heseltine era, but we're living in a different world now," he said.

Is Boylan willing to elaborate? He is reluctant, but says that for the moment he will work with organisations already operating in the Gateway. But he does concede that change is possible: "I'm not promoting structural change but I'm not ruling it out if, in the long term, there is an agreement that it is what is needed to effect better delivery."

What is clear is that the HCA will need to build strong relationships with all the organisations working in the Thames Gateway if it is to make progress. "My first priority is meeting and getting to know those agencies so that I can understand their agendas and priorities, so this can inform the HCA's thinking in terms of the policy framework," says Boylan.

It is also evident that the HCA's relationship with London mayor Boris Johnson faces difficulties before the agency has even started operating. At the beginning of the month, Johnson announced that the planned Thames Gateway Bridge and a proposal to extend the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Dagenham Dock - both seen as crucial to both economic and physical development in the Gateway - were to be scrapped.

"You make it sound like an oppositional relationship and I'm hoping that will not be the case," says Boylan. "We have established a board at the HCA, which is chaired by the mayor, to try to ensure that we are getting absolute synergy between the priorities of the Greater London Authority and the HCA where it is possible."

But the decision about the bridge and the DLR appears to be the very opposite of synergy - surely the HCA isn't in favour of it? "I'm not aware that the HCA was consulted, so I'm not saying that for a moment," replies Boylan. "There are decisions that have been made in terms of transport infrastructure and investment and clearly they are very significant and far-reaching," he says. "I've already started consultations on the implications of the decision to change plans for the DLR extension with partners who are working in Barking (in order) to understand what the issues are for them in the short and medium term."

Pragmatic as Boylan sounds, of all the challenges that lie ahead for the HCA, its task in the Thames Gateway must surely be among the most daunting. So, given the internecine squabbling that has so often been associated with the project, perhaps it is for the best that its new head of policy comes to the negotiating table free of the baggage that can be accumulated by prolonged exposure to Gateway loyalties and rivalries. As Boylan puts it: "I'm leaving quite a busy environment and entering one which is even busier. I'm looking forward to it."

CV HIGHLIGHTS

1983: Joins Manchester City Council as a clerical officer.

1994: Appointed assistant director of housing at Manchester City Council.

1997: Becomes executive director for housing and operational services at Sheffield City Council.

1999: Returns to Manchester to head the council's housing and cultural services.

2001: Takes responsibility for the city council's regeneration programme.

2008 Takes up his new role at the HCA.