Croydon (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Former Croydon CEO Jo Negrini makes a centre stage return, pitching in support of Mayor Sadiq Khan during his Croydon campaign, reigniting local debate.
Following her most recent trip to the south of France for the famed international property conference, or “booze and hooker fest,” known as MIPIM, Jo Negrini has returned to haunt Croydon like Banquo’s ghost.
“Negreedy” used to travel to Cannes every year with her closest coworkers, including the now-deceased and unlamented Heather Cheesbrough (now the council’s former “director of planning and sustainable regeneration”), when she was the overpaid and overrated chief executive of Croydon Council.
Even discredited ex-council leader Tony Newman saw MIPIM for what it is: he called it “a junket”, but that didn’t stop him allowing Negrini to head off for almost a week each March on an all-expenses-paid mini-break.
When Negreedy spent £20,000 of tax payers’ money in 2019—with the financial collapse of Town Hall only eighteen months away—money was no object in those days.
Due to the promised £1.4 billion Westfield development (do you remember that?), the council bosses were on a mission to “sell” Croydon to profit-hungry developers from all over the world.
They were frequently joined by business people looking to increase their personal wealth from public sources, like Richard Plant of estate agents Stiles Harold Williams.
Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time mayor, is a director of the Croydon BID, and Plant continues to be a driving force behind the oxymoronic Develop Croydon.
It is acknowledged that Plant and SHW continue to have a voice in how the Whitgift Foundation’s holdings and Croydon Council’s property portfolio are managed.
Nearly five years have passed since Negrini’s humiliating but well rewarded departure from Fisher’s Folly, running afoul of the council finances she had done so much to destroy.
She returned to MIPIM last month, but this time she was part of a sales team put up by London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, and she was pitching for foreign investment on behalf of the entire capital.
The highest bidder will purchase our city.
Negrini was enjoying the attention that developer high rollers were giving her again. Prior to the event, she exclaimed, “I’m excited to talk about equitable growth at MIPIM at the London Stand with some big hitters in planning and regeneration.”
As a director of Arup, one of the firms that used to secure lucrative contracts from Croydon Council during Negrini’s tenure as CEO, she now boasts about her income.
Given her past, some may find it strange that Negrini would teach the globe how to profit quickly at the expense of government agencies. Croydon was not mentioned at all in Negrini’s conference description for MIPIM 2025. It’s funny.
Negrini’s reputation as a growth authority is damaged by her record in Croydon, which includes £900 million in debt and unsuccessful Westfield/Brick by Brick initiatives. Her MIPIM presence, according to critics, is an example of “career positioning” over quantifiable results.
Negrini’s role as director of Arup raises concerns about revolving-door influence because she works for a company that has a history of awarding Croydon contracts during her tenure.
Although the Bakerloo Line extension and Network Rail initiatives were highlighted by Khan’s delegation, it is still unclear whether Negrini’s involvement and secured funding are directly related.
Instead of London-specific transactions, the major announcements focused on pan-European trends (such as data centers and AI in real estate).
Like her old mate Cheesbrough, Negrini has a very rose-tinted view of her own self-worth, and thinks nothing of boasting of her (non-)achievements on social media.
“What a great panel yesterday at the London Stand chaired by Laura Jenkinson who did well given she had completely lost her voice,”
Negrini shared on her LinkedIn profile after her first day in Cannes.
Negrini was on a panel with Joanna Averley from the Ministry of Housing, Victoria Hills, the chief executive of the Royal Town Planners Institute, and Katie Stewart from the City of London.
They were talking about “Planning change, driving growth,” which Negrini has no knowledge of based on the evidence of her time in Croydon, including the £70 million Fairfield Halls tragedy, the £200 million Brick by Brick disaster, and the non-development of Westfield.
“Big day for Joanna Averley with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill heralding the rise of strategic planning, new direction powers for the Secretary of State for major infrastructure, locally determined planning fees and a raft of other initiatives to ‘rebuild Britain and kick start economic growth’.”
Negrini enjoys portraying herself as an authority on “strategic planning.” Sir Sadiq would have every right to question why Negrini was permitted to be anywhere close to a stand that was purportedly promoting London if he ever bothered to look around Croydon.
In her most recent career-hustling social media update, Negrini unsurprisingly proposed forming a task force “to focus on unlocking the roughly 1.1 million homes that already have consent,” thereby aligning herself closely with the Starmer Labour government’s drive to develop, build, build. Arup, Negrini’s new company, presumably anticipates receiving a portion of that development action.
Negrini wrote of her contribution to MIPIM 2025:
“I spoke about the link between planning and economic growth and the need to clearly define what we mean by economic growth, how we will measure it, how it will feel to our communities and how we will know if we’re successful.”
Almost half a million people live in Croydon, and they have every right to wonder what Negrini has to say about any of those issues given their crippled services and skyrocketing Council Tax costs.
Unfortunately, Mayor Sadiq Khan did not.
How did Megrini’s presence at MIPIM impact London’s investment opportunities?
Although her exact contribution to London’s investment pitch at MIPIM 2025 is still unclear, Jo Negrini’s participation as an Arup director mostly came from her networking and panel participation.
Negrini supported Mayor Sadiq Khan’s £22 billion “Opportunity London” program for housing and infrastructure by taking part in panels like “Planning change, driving growth” with key figures (such as Victoria Hills from the Royal Town Planning Institute). Her contributions, however, were more concerned with general concepts like “equitable growth” than with particular project knowledge.
In contrast to her previous council-led MIPIM appearances, Croydon was completely left out of Negrini’s 2025 papers, indicating its decreasing significance in investment strategies for the entire city of London.
Despite its previous dependence on MIPIM-led regeneration, this is consistent with the prospectus’ exclusion of Croydon-specific initiatives (such as tram expansions).