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Smart in the City The BABLE PodcastAuthor: BABLE Smart Cities
Hop on the journey toward a better urban life and hear from top actors in the Smart City arena about stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations. At BABLE, through our platform and services, we enable processes from research and strategy development to co-creation and implementation. Visit us at www.bable-smartcities.eu Language: en Genres: Business, Technology Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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#157 London: Balancing Heritage with a Retrofit First Approach
Tuesday, 27 January, 2026
In this episode, recorded live at the neext 2025 in partnership with Drees & Sommer, we travel to the historic "Square Mile" with Alderman Gregory Jones KC of the City of London, UK. As a barrister and elected representative, Gregory provides a unique perspective on the intersection of planning law, heritage preservation, and urgent sustainability goals. We discuss the City's "retrofit first" presumption and the specific challenges of upgrading buildings in a dense, historic financial district. The conversation also explores the complexities of whole-life carbon, the reliability of current tools for measuring retrofit savings, and the importance of designing flexibility into new structures for future resilience. Like our show? Remember to subscribe and rate it! Want to join us for an episode? Fill out the form on our Podcast Page. And for more insights, visit our BABLE Smart Cities Knowledge Hub Chapters (00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:40) - Defining the City of London(00:05:20) - Teaser question: Which one would you choose and why?(00:06:41) - Guest background(00:09:32) - Retrofitting in council work(00:11:36) - National Planning Policy Framework(00:13:29) - Local development plan challenges(00:17:04) - Presumption of retrofit first(00:21:33) - Whole life cycle carbon(00:25:04) - Designing for flexibility(00:27:41) - Measuring retrofit savings(00:34:59) - Advice for other councils(00:41:50) - Segment: Inspire Us(00:45:24) - Ending question: “To you, what is a Smart City?”
