Interview with Frank Henshaw part 5

Frank says that the philosophy of both MKDC Chairmen was: ‘Build a place that people are happy to live in, and the rest will follow, companies will come’. Frank was asked to be ‘client’ for the Shopping Building as ‘Project Director, Central Area’ coordinating the work; and MKDC was the developer on this and other schemes such as Central Business Exchange, doing all the work on design, funding, carrying the risks and being the principle letting agent. This aimed to avoid problems that had occurred on large public sector schemes elsewhere, where there was no recognised ‘client’, He describes MKDC’s relationship with the POSS Fund, the major shareholder of the Shopping Building: POSS Fund agreed to the MKDC design, and Frank notes that their agreement protected POSS Fund from some of the risks. Fred Reader, POSS’s Property Director, became a member of the Shopping Management Company as the project neared completion. Despite some initial doubts about the building design, Frank considered the bold choice of materials was right but notes that the Government: ‘…really had to be persuaded’, recalling liaison with various civil servants. He notes ‘I was instrumental in the later decision to put doors on the building …but reluctant’. He accepted that the weather and the tunnelling effect of the building made it uncomfortable and was a security risk, and wrote the proposal for the MKDC Board himself – he says: ‘others were reluctant to do so!’

Frank talks about the Government’s recruitment of Jock Campbell and other strong people to the MKDC Board in the beginning. They needed confidence that the Board would drive forward in both good and bad times. Frank describes the atmosphere in Executive Management Committee (EMC) meetings: ‘EMC could be quite exciting at times. We had …a number of people who would throw their pencil onto the desk in anger; …there were always tensions’; he talks of his management methods. He remembers Jock Campbell being meticulous in his preparation for Board meetings, to ensure that proposals were sound: ‘Jock knew every paper that would be circulated to the board’. Frank recalls that Jock: ‘…used to question executive officers quite severely on some of the edgier proposals’.