Daniel Moylan


Daniel Moylan Hon FRIBA is an Anglo-Irish Conservative politician, formerly a member of Kensington and Chelsea Council and co-chairman of Urban Design London. He is a former deputy chairman of Transport for London, former chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation and was chief aviation advisor to Boris Johnson as Mayor of London, advocating a new hub airport to the east of London to replace Heathrow, and also the Mayor's principal advisor on Crossrail 2.
In 2010 an article in the London Evening Standard described Moylan as "one of London's most powerful and colourful politicians".
The Grenfell Tower fire and subsequent widely condemned response from the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council took place during Daniel Moylan's council tenure.

Early life

Moylan was educated at St Philip's Grammar School, Edgbaston. In 1975 he went up to the Queen's College, Oxford, where he took a degree in German and Philosophy. He was President of the Oxford Union in the Michaelmas term, 1978, and in November gained publicity by securing Richard Nixon as a guest speaker.

Early career

Moylan joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in December 1978. After some time in the FCO's Central and Southern African Department, he undertook Afrikaans language training and was posted to the British Embassy in South Africa as Third Secretary, reporting on the progress of South-West Africa to independence as Namibia. In 1982, Moylan left the FCO and joined County Bank, the investment banking subsidiary of National Westminster, and stayed with them until 1986. At the general election of 1983 he was the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Birmingham Erdington, losing to Robin Corbett by 231 votes. In 1986 he joined Security Pacific Hoare Govett as a Vice-President, and left them in 1987 to set up Egan Associates, a company providing training courses to financial institutions.

Local government career

Elected to Kensington and Chelsea Council in May 1990, Moylan became deputy leader of the council in 2000. As a councillor he specialised in environmental matters, including waste, environmental health, parks, transportation, and planning. He also served as the council's Design Champion and Heritage Champion. From 2006 to 2009 he chaired the London Councils Transport and Environment Committee. He resigned as deputy leader and from the council's Cabinet in April 2011 to concentrate on his work as deputy chairman of Transport for London. He stood down as a councillor for the Queen's Gate ward in May 2018. He twice stood for election as Leader of Kensington and Chelsea: in 2000, when he was defeated by a single vote, and again in 2013, when he came equal second.
A journalist commented in 2010 that "like a Tory version of Peter Mandelson, Moylan combines ferocious intellectual ability – and wit – with a naturally sinister demeanour that has made him many enemies". Moylan has both British and Irish nationality.

Transport for London and Crossrail

In August 2008, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, appointed Moylan to the Board of Transport for London. In February 2009 he became deputy chairman, in which position he served until 2012 and again from March to May 2016. Moylan was responsible both for bringing the organisation's finances back into order and for terminating the public-private partnership initiated by the Blair government, brought to a close in May 2010 with TfL's acquisition of Tube Lines from Ferrovial and Bechtel.
In August 2013, Moylan was appointed to the board of Crossrail as a non-executive director, replacing Sir Mike Hodgkinson as the Transport for London nominee. In September 2014, he was appointed to oversee City Hall's work on the Crossrail 2 project. In July 2015, as the Mayor's advisor on the project, he stated that delay should not be an option, as London is growing at the rate of two inhabitants an hour, and that by 2030 it will have a population of ten million. He remained a non-executive director of Crossrail and a member of the TfL Board, until the Mayoral election in May 2016, when Sadiq Khan became Mayor.

London infrastructure

Within London, Moylan has promoted new approaches to streetscape drawn principally from the Dutch "shared space" concept developed by Hans Monderman. These resulted in a redesign of Kensington High Street soon after Moylan became deputy leader of the Council in 2000. One aim of this was to rationalise street furniture and create a more pedestrian-friendly environment, and to achieve this Moylan had to reject professional advice and transfer the risks of the project onto himself and other councillors, after detailed consideration of the public safety risks. Plans for a similar improvement of Sloane Square in Chelsea proved controversial and were shelved in 2007, after a campaign against them partly directed against Moylan personally, but a clutter-free redesign of Exhibition Road, in London's museums district, was achieved in 2012.
In 2009, Boris Johnson appointed Moylan to chair the Mayor's Design Advisory Panel, with responsibility for delivering the Mayor's vision for the public realm as set out in his "Great Outdoors" policy statement. Until he left these roles in June 2012, Moylan oversaw many improvements to highways and parks around the capital, including the restoration of Piccadilly and St James's Street to two-way traffic.
In 2011 Moylan was appointed chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation, a Mayoral body created by statute to own and manage the Olympic Park, heading it for the duration of the London Summer Olympics of 2012 and the Paralympic Games. His appointment surprised observers, replacing as he did the Labour peer Lady Ford, and was formally opposed by the Labour/Green majority on the London Assembly. He made significant changes to the leadership of the organisation, which were not welcomed by the longer-serving Board members. In September 2012, Johnson himself took over as chairman of LLDC, so that Moylan could focus on promoting their policy on a new London airport.

Aviation advisor

Moylan was the chief aviation advisor of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London and worked to promote the Mayor's concept of a new or expanded multi-runway hub airport to the east of London, which would replace the existing Heathrow Airport.
In May 2010, Johnson gave Moylan the responsibility for promoting this scheme. In 2010 and 2011, working with Transport for London officers and with City Hall, he oversaw the publication of a major report in two parts called A New Airport for London. In September 2012 the Government announced the establishment of an Airports Commission, chaired by Sir Howard Davies, to review options for new airport capacity. Moylan stepped down from the chairmanship of LLDC to focus on the Mayor's liaison with the new Commission. In December 2013, the Airports Commission failed to shortlist an estuary airport option, concentrating instead on expansion of Heathrow or Gatwick, but agreed to reconsider the estuary option and to decide later whether to add it to the short-list. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee, Moylan spoke of "tremendous potential for regeneration of east London" from a new hub airport in the Thames estuary. In November 2014 he was quoted as saying that creating an airport to the east of London would be "magnificently the right thing to do" and that the Heathrow site could then be developed into a new town. In October 2015, in giving evidence to the Environmental Audit Select Committee of the House of Commons, he said that an extra runway at Heathrow would cut the respite from flights allowed to local residents to as little as four hours a day.

Publications

In 2008 Moylan was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, "for his contribution to the improvement of urban design in London".