Developer Peter Kaufman-Kent, 67, is the owner of Bligh's Meadow, the ever-expanding shopping centre in the heart of Sevenoaks which includes more than 30 shops and cafes.

He lives in Guernsey but, as managing director of development firm Ironbridge Estates, enjoys a close relationship with the decision-makers in Sevenoaks.

He has also been a staunch supporter of the Sevenoaks Summer Festival.

IR: First off, there is a great mystery about you that baffles a lot of people in Sevenoaks, and that's how your surname is pronounced. It's 'Coughman' isn't it?

PKK: Yes, it's a derivative of the word 'merchant'. It has various spellings in Europe. If you go up to the northern parts of Europe with Germany and the like it's spelt with a double 'f' and a double 'n' and it's generally pronounced 'Cowfman' but when you go further south to the areas we hail from it has one 'f' and one 'n' and you generally find that people from the north are always known as 'Cowfman'. My grandparents came from Romania, on the Russian border actually; we're not quite sure whether we're Romanians or Russians.

IR: Which is preferable?

PKK: At the time it was a disputed border and it was a tsar who was a Russian who drove us out but whether that was because we were Romanians or because we were Russians remains to be seen. We're not quite sure if he threw us out before he moved the border or after.

For what it's worth the story goes that I had one aunt who came out with the family who was very ancient and her memory was a bit suspect but I think the nearest I can get is the story of Fiddler on the Roof if you've seen it. It comes from the same period and the same time. They left with just a suitcase. They caught a boat to America and had three days to leave by all accounts and there were three boys and two girls and they got to what they thought was America when they were put off the boat and it turned out they were in East London. I'm not sure if that's a benefit or a disadvantage, I could have been an American but I turned out an Englishman. I'm not quite sure if Sevenoaks regards that as a success or not.

IR: Let's talk about Bligh's. It opened quite a while ago now, back in 2000.

PKK: I don't remember (smiling). I know we've just been doing the first rent reviews so...

IR: Oh dear.

PKK: No it's about right.

IR: About right for you or about right for the shops?

PKK: (Pause). Well, no it's about right. Anyway, well you're talking about Bligh's so you're going straight for the jugular then?

IR: Bligh's is why we're here, Bligh's is why we're in Sevenoaks.

PKK: Is it, OK?

IR: So it opened in 2000. How's it gone?

PKK: It's very successful and is regarded in its like as one of the most successful shopping centres in the UK.

IR: By you or by somebody else?

PKK: If you compare it with its peers it's one of the best.

IR: You can't compare it with Bluewater can you?

PKK: No but for its open-type style of shopping centre it's regarded as one of the best and to get the correct answer you need to speak to Chase and Partners who act as both our letting agents but also act as advisors to the council. It was Graham Chase who introduced me to the possibility of doing it when (developer) Centros Miller fell out with the council and withdrew and the council were looking for someone to pick up the pieces. I knew the area because I had worked in this area in the past and at the time.

IR: What time are you talking about?

PKK: It was part of the opening of Bluewater, so this is why the Centros Miller deal fell apart. I'm told it fell apart because at the time Bluewater was coming on stream and was being built and it was being heralded as 'this was going to wipe out retailing in the whole of the south east of England'. It's the biggest shopping centre in Europe and Centros Miller used it, I guess, as a reasonable excuse to withdraw.

But I knew the area well enough to know that people in Sevenoaks don't necessarily shop, they graze and there was no chance of people from Sevenoaks going to Bluewater to shop on a regular basis; they might go twice a year.

IR: Is that still true?

PKK: Yes. People might go there for Christmas shopping or a special birthday possibly but no-one's going to go to Bluewater, try and find somewhere to park...

IR: Surely parking's easier to find at Bluewater than it is at Bligh's

PKK: Yes but it's getting there and then you try and find your car. You've got to remember where you parked it!

I never saw it as being competition for Bligh's.

IR: Was the investment here worth it? It cost £11m.

PKK: It was slightly less than that actually, about £9m.

IR: Was it worth it?

PKK: Well do I look rundown on my pension scheme, do I look on my uppers?

IR: For the benefit of the tape you look remarkably well. How old are you then Peter?

PKK: I was born in 1942 so I think that puts me 69.

IR: 67.

PKK. Does it? Sixty-eight in July. I lose track. When you get to this sort of age you don't count any more, you're just grateful.

IR: Has Bligh's been a success for Sevenoaks?

PKK: Yes I think that's perfectly evident. Someone once made the comment in the early days when we were starting Bligh's that the problem with Sevenoaks is it's a large village that wanted to be a town and now it's a town it's not quite sure what to do with itself.

Clearly I don't think if you were to ask that question of anyone who understands town centres and retail and things there would be any dispute. If Bligh's hadn't happened then this high street of Sevenoaks would have collapsed.

IR: That's quite a claim.

PKK: No, you only have to look back now at what London Road used to look like. There were plenty of empty units in London Road. Now you come into Sevenoaks – OK it's a bit of an exception now because of the exceptional circumstances – but under normal circumstances, normal trading conditions, there are very few empty shops available in Sevenoaks and we've never had any real problem in re-letting any unit. It's not a question of letting it, it's a question of having the right tenant.

IR: So how do you go about choosing the right tenant? What type are you looking for?

PKK: At the end of the day it's my choice but I always had an understanding with Sevenoaks (district council), I've always kept faith with the original concept that we wouldn't do anything which jeopardised the High Street. We would consider Bligh's as part of a shopping offer of Sevenoaks and not a 'them and us' shopping centre which is why I modified the design to ensure it was seamless, unlike many shopping centres which have a glass door and you are in it or you're out of it, it's them or us.

IR: Like in Tunbridge Wells.

PKK: Yes. You go into Sevenoaks, you go into Bligh's and you wouldn't know when you were in or out of Bligh's. That was the original concept to ensure that Bligh's integrated with the town and did not create a 'them and us' scenario.

IR: Why would the town have died?

PKK: It wasn't a big enough shopping offer. Shopping generally, this is my own personal view, is not a particularly pleasurable experience and therefore you go somewhere where you know you can get it over with and go somewhere else and then go off and enjoy your golf or whatever else you want to do. Therefore when you go shopping you've got to be able to do a one-stop shop and Sevenoaks' retail offer to the customer was becoming seriously deficient on what was available.

It meant that you could come to Sevenoaks for your essentials but if you wanted anything fashionable you had to go to Tunbridge Wells so why come to Sevenoaks, why not just go to Tunbridge Wells? Therefore there had to be a critical mass that would encourage customers to come here, linger here and do their entire shopping and that's what Bligh's did.

IR: Have you not, though, created a generic town in Sevenoaks by having the sort of shops you'd see in Tunbridge Wells and Bluewater?

PKK: I'm not sure what you mean by 'generic town'.

IR: Having the same shops.

PKK: Well that's fairly inevitable but I think it's fair to say that it's often said that you could parachute into most towns in the UK now, take your blindfold off and you wouldn't know where you are. But you couldn't say that of Sevenoaks. It has a particular character.

IR: It depends where you land.

PKK: It has maintained a character. I know there are people who travel quite long distances to come shopping in Sevenoaks, I mean as far as Dartford which is probably 20, 30 miles so they come to spend a morning or a pleasurable day in the summer shopping in Sevenoaks.

We come back to the question of selecting the tenants and the mix. We have empty shops at the moment which I could let tomorrow if I wanted to, perhaps have another phone company or building society or something like that, but that's not what I'm about so I will wait until we have the right mix of tenant.

In fact, we have the Adams unit empty at the moment and we've had a couple of A3, that's food-type operations or coffee houses, and I've turned them down, I've said 'no thank you'. And they're really good tenants too, really top rate coffee operators and I've said 'no thank you' because it's the wrong location and I don't want that there.

IR: Are you telling me that you've turned down a very profitable company, that could be successful for you in Bligh's, because you want a certain offering?

PKK: Yeah.

IR: Is it not costing you money to do that though?

PKK: Yes, at the end of the day. But I'm not an institution, Bligh's is part of our property portfolio and I don't have to answer to any shareholders or anything like that – well we have shareholders but they're all part of the family so to speak – and therefore we are there for the longer term and there is no real point in filling Bligh's up with coffee shops because that defeats the original object I was telling you about, of a one stop shop and people coming for a better offer.

IR: Because that's one of the biggest complaints I hear – about Sevenoaks being overrun by coffee shops. I think people will be glad to hear you're standing up for them on that point. There's only one coffee shop in Bligh's after all.

PKK: Well, there are different types of coffee shop and there are different types of coffee offer. You have Coffee Republic, you now have Cafe Rouge which is a slightly different offer, and then down the end you have Nona Cappucini which is a slightly different offer again. And that is quite deliberate, it's not by any coincidence. And the particular offer we had for the Adams shops would have been a direct competition to Coffee Republic and what is the point? That just puts them both under strain, one or other of them will fail, or may fail, and so where's the benefit in that?

It's the wrong use of that location.

IR: So are you holding out for a certain type of shop?

PKK: We have interest in the unit at the moment. We have interest in all our empty units but I've got to find the right mix.

IR: Even during a recession?

PKK: We don't really have a problem. Well, to some extent we do in that some of the offers we get are really quire derisory and one can give things away but we have sensible uses for the empty space. In fact I've just come from a letting meeting now and we have potential tenants for the empty space. It's just getting the right ones.

It sounds a bit altruistic but at the end of the day it's what you look for. Bligh's is a long-term investment, I have no interest in damaging that investment by having the wrong mix of tenants over a period of time.

IR: Have you ever been tempted to sell up?

PKK: Yes. It's quite common knowledge. This is our 40th year by the way so quite a milestone. We set the company up, the three of us. I bought out one of our partners. When he turned 70 he decided he wanted early retirement, which is obviously totally unreasonable (laughing). My other joint venture partner is 82 now and he's talking about early retirement.

IR: So you're the whippersnapper?

PKK. Yes. I have to be very careful how I say this but I always regarded myself as Granville from Open All Hours, you know, I got the company bike. My other partner was keen for us to sell so we did explore the possibilities quite actively this time last year and we had some very interesting offers. By force of circumstances the market started to turn against us anyway and I wasn't...it just didn't seem the right thing to be doing so we didn't pursue it.

IR: So if it hadn't been for the greedy bankers getting us into a recession you may well have sold Bligh's?

PKK: (Pointing at the tape recorder) Can I turn this off?

IR: Depends what you want to say.

PKK: I'll come back onto it. I can't comment on whether they are greedy bankers or not. Shall we say some of their investment advisors weren't perhaps as succinct as they might have been.

IR: But if it hadn't been for the recession you might have sold?

PKK: Well yes, in business you have to review your operations on a regular basis. I can't tell now. We might have done but I don't see that as a prospect in the foreseeable future.

IR: But it's obviously on the cards all the time?

PKK: No, I don't see it. As far as I'm concerned, circumstances might change, but I don't see it as a possibility in the foreseeable future.

IR: Even though you're retired, in inverted commas, now?

PKK: Well, surely if you're retired you want your income don't you? I could lend it to the bankers, they're a bit short of money at the moment (laughs) but half a percent return on my investment wouldn't seem to me as terribly good business, does it?

IR: You're the businessman but I would suggest no.

PKK: So you only have to stop and think about it. I've got a very good friend who looks after the assets of a number of ex-pats, non-doms or however you look at it and we meet quite regularly and he's always telling me I need his services. I say to him 'I'm quite capable of losing my own money, I don't need to pay you a fee to help me lose it'.

IR: What's your valuation of Bligh's?

PKK: (Smiling) I'm sorry, problem with my hearing aid. When you get to my age you do get problems with your hearing aid.

IR: Hmmm, subtle. Woolworths is the biggest talking point in Sevenoaks at the moment in terms of business. Have you been interested in taking over Woolworths? It's a massive site.

PKK: It's not that massive, actually. I think that's probably part of its problem: it's neither too big nor too small. When it became apparent it would become empty we made some enquiries but it belongs to an individual investment company or whatever but it didn't belong to Woolworths and therefore it wasn't available for sale. Had it been available for sale we might have taken a different view. But in a way it doesn't really fit into the Bligh's Meadow footprint.

IR: It's not a million miles away though, is it?

PKK: But what's the point? We have a defined estate and anything that comes up which can be integrated, as we did with 50-52 London Road (now Cafe Rouge) and Lady Boswell House, that can be integrated into the scheme but once you jump the High Street where do you stop?

IR: But you're keen to expand where you can?

PKK: I didn't say I was keen to expand but you look at every opportunity and if it enhances the added value then we will give it serious consideration but we are not actively out there trying to acquire additional properties.

IR: You're not trying to buy Sevenoaks?

PKK: No. People have suggested that to me in the past which is a complete misrepresentation. You can't stand still in life can you. When an opportunity comes up, like 50-52 London Road, it was something we could do with a bit of dead land in front of it which by combining the two turns out we were able to do Cafe Rouge which I hope everyone will see as an asset. The Lady Boswell House thing came up and I saw the opportunity of combining. We had a series of service yards, none of which in themselves were serving a purpose but if you combined it with the old playground and Lady Boswell House and reorganised you could put some life back into Lady Boswell House, create a parade of shops and reorganise the spaces so that it was a win-win for everybody.

IR: Let's go back to Woolworths briefly. What can you see happening there? Its problem is that it's such a central site and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

PKK: It's not really for me to comment. Someone will take it on and a retailer will see a need for it. I have hotel interests in Jersey and there was a very big Woolworths there – the Sevenoaks one isn't particularly big – and when that went it was a very big loss to the high street but within a very short of period of time a major retailer has taken it on and are fitting it out now. It's the right thing in the right place, a retailer will come along and take it up. It's what life's about, people come, people go, business has always been like that.

IR: Much was made of Woolworths closing nationwide but maybe it's not that big a deal in the scheme of things.

PKK: Plenty of other retailers have come and gone. I think Britain was once regarded as a nation of shopkeepers by a certain Frenchman but businesses come and businesses go and that's the way life is. New people come in with fresh ideas and in the end, in five, 10 years' time people will say 'who were they?'

IR: So what's next for Bligh's then?

PKK: That is a $64,000 questions. I can't really answer that at the moment. We're constantly looking at opportunities when they come up and we are in some discussions at the moment with other retailers but there's nothing concrete, we're not in the position to make a planning application this week.

IR: Is that to expand or work within the existing footprint?

PKK: I tend to work, at the moment, within the existing footprint.

IR: The obvious bit that needs finishing off is the Sevenoaks Club area of the town.

PKK: You say it's obvious. I don't think it's any secret that a number of years ago we spent a great deal of money putting together a redevelopment proposal for the whole of that, from 50-52 London Road right down to the traffic lights. We got planning consent but then in the council's wisdom they withdrew from the arrangement.

IR: The Sevenoaks Club have now said they are closing.

PKK: You do surprise me...

IR: What impact does that have for any plans on that site?

PKK: The club as I understand it have passed a resolution to wind the club up and that the committee has been charged with the process of how they do that. But nobody has made any contact with me about it.

IR: Would you be interested in buying that site?

PKK: Yes. It can be seen to be integrated with Bligh's Meadow and we could create, therefore, a benefit to the town.

IR: What would you want to create there?

PKK: Well Bligh's is a shopping centre so why not the ground floor as some sort of retail? It's no secret, I had planning consent to build a hotel in the town and I still believe that that is something which would be an asset to the town. The original London Road redevelopment scheme, for which I had detailed planning consent, includes the hotel. Maybe the possibilities on the first floor would be some sort of hotel. As it happens the shape of the building would actually suit that because it's quite long and narrow; hotels tend to be long and narrow because you want rooms either side and a corridor down the middle.

IR: Whenever we do anything in the paper on tourism people are always saying 'we need more accommodation'.

PKK: Well you try getting to build a hotel in the town and I'm told we don't need one.

IR: Who by?

PKK: I'm told that we don't need another hotel, after all I got planning consent for a hotel in the town. I didn't get to build it and that was with a major international brand.

IR: So what went wrong there? Was that the planners?

PKK: This was when the council decided to withdraw from the arrangement we had to redevelop the London Road frontage which included the hotel, a substantial element of residential and retail and offices. Planning consent was current until it was allowed to lapse about two or three years ago.

IR: Would a hotel still succeed in Sevenoaks?

PKK: I've built seven hotels in my time so I guess I know something about hotels. I'd be perfectly happy to build a hotel of a reasonable size. It would have to be minimum of roundabout 90 rooms to make it economic. A good, four-star branded hotel in Sevenoaks, I think, would be a viable business proposition.

IR: But a four-star hotel overlooking a shopping centre and car park?

PKK: It's not an unpleasant car park. As car parks go it's really rather quite pleasant; there's trees and plants. Come on, I can think of many car parks which you want to linger in.

IR: Granted, it's not a multi-storey car park but it's very busy. Have you tried to park there recently?

PKK: It's a town centre location. I can think of many town centre locations which would be far less desirable than Sevenoaks which have hotels in them.

IR: How much of a problem is the parking issue in Sevenoaks for your retailers?

PKK: I think it is a disadvantage for the town, not just for our retailers, Bligh's is part of the town. Parking is a disadvantage. However you like to view the world people like to use their cars and one can say 'keep the cars out' but it's not the real world. There are a number of viable propositions to improve parking in the town but there's no political will to do it.

IR: It's a political problem?

PKK: Yes. There are several locations in the town where a car park could be built for a substantial number of cars but there is no political will to solve the problem.

IR: Why not?

PKK: Don't ask me.

IR: Surely it would be in any politician's interest to be the person that solved Sevenoaks' parking problem.

PKK: There is no difficulty solving the problem at all. It is not financial, it is political.

IR: But the council's got very little money.

PKK: You can build a car park in the town as a commercial proposition, a commercial investment. I would build one. I have already offered. We've had two designs to build car parks in the town but there was no political will to do it.

IR: Where?

PKK: Lower Buckhurst and just between Lower Buckhurst and the back of Tesco. Both of those would take a decked car park and there were designs for car parks in both locations.

IR: Multi-storey?

PKK: Deck.

IR: So two decks?

PKK: Three. Buckhurst is one down, surface and one up. I forget the numbers in total but 250/300 spaces. The one behind Tesco was, I think, surface level and one up.

IR: Exactly where are you talking because behind Tesco you've got the leisure centre car park, or are you not going that far?

PKK: No you're not going that far. There is a car park there, I can't remember what it's called, and there is a design which Sevenoaks District Council has for a car park there and there is also another design for the Lower Buckhurst car park. The problem with Lower Buckhurst car park, which they will tell you because people will cling to reasons why we can't do things rather than why we can, is there is a water main that runs through the middle of it. But that's only a question of cost. It's purported to be a major problem but it isn't, it's just a question of cost. And it would be a logical place to put it because it would then serve the leisure club and everything else and be a logical place.

There's also a suggestion that's been put to me that it backs onto Knole Park which is a conservation area or special interest, or whatever the correct designation is, but that's just a design problem. Multi-storey car parks don't have to look like multi-storey car parks. A good architect can design that out.

IR: You can't design one to make it look like a park.

PKK: No but it's only a frontage. There's actually a very good example of that in, I think it's High Wycombe where they have a car park there which you drive past and you'd never know because it doesn't look like a car park. The way they have designed it, it is slightly set back and there are planters all around it and you'd never know it was a car park. It could be done in the woodland but it's a question of cost.

So the problems can be solved.

The London Road car park (plan) that we had, for which we had planning consent, had I forget the actual numbers but 250-300 car parking spaces.

IR: So you went to the council willing to pay for this car park and it didn't get any further because the council weren't interested, they thought it was too controversial?

PKK: No, we went to the council with a view to if they would lease us the land we would build a car park as a commercial operation but their difficulty then of course is they lose the rental income. I don't know their thinking behind as to why.

IR: But you went to them saying 'look, lease me that land, I can solve the planning problem in Sevenoaks'?

PKK: No, I can assist in relieving it. You must ask Sevenoaks District Council why that proposal – the two proposals – have never been pursued.

IR: This was last year?

PKK: No this goes back years, to the early days of developing Bligh's. It's come up on a number of occasions since.

IR: Would you still be willing to do that?

PKK: We'd have to run the economic figures again but a car parking space has a value and the rationale that we had: all around Sevenoaks there are contract car parking spaces and our view was that if we were to offer contract car park then those other spaces would be freed up for customers.

IR: I had a similar conversation with the MP, Michael Fallon, who was saying that a car park in itself is not a commercially viable proposition.

PKK: Well I should ask National Car Parks how they succeed, they're one of the most successful companies in the UK.

IR: It can be done then?

PKK: Well just look at the commercial viability of National Car Parks, NCP. I haven't noticed that they've shown too much stress.

IR: What about the Stag site? For a long time it was touted as being turned into a multi-storey car park and it came pretty close to the council deciding against the theatre.

PKK: I would be prepared to comment on that perhaps at another time because I do have other thoughts and there are people who know what my thoughts are there but it's not for me to say. I'm not even a citizen of Sevenoaks, I'm just a businessman of Sevenoaks.

IR: You're a tax exile, Peter, aren't you?

PKK: No.

IR: You live in Guernsey.

PKK: No, I choose to live in Guernsey because it happens to suit my...

IR: Tax.

PKK: No. (smiling) I am very heavily asthmatic and the environment there suits me very well. I find that it suits me very well.

IR: Very good. But your alternative idea – is that to do with the theatre or to do with the car park?

PKK: The people of Sevenoaks have to decide what they want to do, it's not for me to say. Obviously my interest is in Bligh's and car parking is an issue for my tenants and therefore I have an interest in helping to solve that problem if I can. But I'm not really wishing to go any further than that.

IR: So as a local businessman would you rather see the theatre space used as a car park and the theatre elsewhere, or no theatre at all, or is the theatre of benefit to your retailers? What's your view?

PKK: I think there are opportunities to build a new theatre for the town which would be more practical. I know quite a lot about the Stag building, it's not the most economic building to run, it's not a particularly friendly user space.

My own personal view is that the Stag Theatre is probably reaching the end of its sell-by date. One of the unusual features of Sevenoaks is that there are a number of supporting facilities within the town, like the leisure centres, swimming pool etc where if you go to most towns you will find they're stuck out in some park at the edge of the town. They are all integrated in to the town and that's important, in fact we had a promotion at one time when the shopkeepers in Bligh's could issue people with a voucher which was worth, £1 or something like that and they could cash those vouchers in at the swimming pool, leisure centre or the Stag because we wanted to try and encourage people to shop in the town and then linger in the town and use the other facilities.

But my feeling is – and it's a personal view but it's not secret because I've had this discussion a number of times – that a new theatre, built as part of the leisure complex would actually take the opportunity much further forward.

IR: So build a theatre next to the leisure centres, or knock the whole thing down and build a new leisure centre with a theatre?

PKK: No no, next to the leisure centre and build on top of the Buckhurst car park. If you're going to build a new car park then why not build a theatre on top of it? Then you've got the opportunity of turning the Stag Theatre site into something more useful.

IR: Such as a car park?

PKK: Yeah but not only a car park, it's an important retail site as well to the town because I'd like to think Bligh's has had a positive effect on London Road – well it has, quite clearly because before Bligh's was built most shops there were empty, now it's full – so London Road is an important part of the retail offer of the town and therefore that site, which includes the post office.

IR: So when you've gone to the council what's been the problem because I'd have thought that anyone who wanted to develop the town in this way, while retaining the theatre and adding more car parking, bringing the town along, would have their arm bitten off.

PKK: There is no political will for these activities, there's no positive political thinking for this sort of way forward.

IR: Is that the good old fear of change?

PKK: I don't know, I did say to you that originally when we first started talking that it has been said to me before Bligh's happened that Sevenoaks was a village that wanted to be a town, it's now a town that doesn't know where it wants to go.

IR: And do you know where you want it to go?

PKK: No, no, no, it's not for me to decide where Sevenoaks wants to go, it's for the people of Sevenoaks to decide where they want to go but if Sevenoaks decides that they want to go a particular route, if I'm able to I will add my expertise to help them go that route. After all I have a substantial commercial interest in the town but it's not for me to tell Sevenoaks what they want to do with their town, they invited me to come into Sevenoaks, they invited me to do Bligh's, I did Bligh's.

IR: You mean the council?

PKK: The council are the town's representatives after all. I delivered, which if you look around at what else has been delivered, not a lot, but I actually delivered and if you ask the right people who can give you an informed comment then Bligh's is regarded as a considerable success as a retail offer.

IR: Have you ever thought of going into politics?

PKK: Why would I want to do that? I'm retired.

IR: But your frustration with the political system is clear. Have you not thought of tackling that from the inside?

PKK: I didn't say I had a frustration with it.

IR: It's pretty evident that you're frustrated with the political system.

PKK: No I find it disappointing, I don't find it frustrating but surely it's for Sevenoaks to decide what it wants. At the moment because it re-elects the same politicians presumably it wants the status quo and if that's what they want then who am I to change that?

But if Sevenoaks decides it wants to change and if the politicians decided they wanted to genuinely improve the car parking offer of the town then we would assist with our commercial expertise, if it genuinely decided it wanted to do something with the Stag Theatre and the Stag Theatre site, again, and we were approached, we are part of Sevenoaks and we would use our very considerable commercial expertise – and this is based, as I told you, on 40 years of continuous trading, there are not many of us in this business who have that track record and this is not by coincidence – we know our business and we know how to operate our business.

IR: Are the council aware of your views on these projects so if they thought one day 'I'd like to do a multi-storey car park with a theatre on top, I'll go to Peter'?

PKK: At the end of the day they only have to look around at who has actually delivered and who hasn't in the town. It's fairly evident, isn't it, that one thing I will never do is take on something which I don't believe I can deliver. If I can't do it I just say so.

IR: Does that mean you're not ambitious?

PKK: No, that's not the right connotation to that at all. The majority of my business career has been land regeneration and this is land regeneration, not just filling bits of land in with rubbish and then planting them but actually going into areas where industrial processes, coal mining, steel mills or whatever, have moved on and finding alternative uses for those sites and I've done that all over the country. If you take on that role you have a serious moral obligation to deliver because those people have seen their way of life disappear and if you go in there and offer them hope of a new future you have to deliver.

IR: So would you like to see a change in the ruling party at Sevenoaks District Council?

PKK: It's not for me to say, it's for the people of Sevenoaks to decide what they want. They go to the ballot box, I'm not a voter, I don't have a vote in Sevenoaks. Sevenoaks must decide what they want for their town and vote the politicians in that will deliver what they want and they vote for politicians they have now presumably because similar politicians have been there for a long time and they've delivered the similar result for a long time.

IR: Would you say it's no different then?

PKK: No, the same politicians, or most of them, voted to invite me in to build Bligh's but maybe that's as far as they wanted to go. If that's as far as they want to go then who am I to suggest otherwise.

IR: You've always kept your profile in Sevenoaks pretty low.

PKK: I keep my profile everywhere pretty low.

IR: Why's that? Why aren't you saying 'this is what I've done for Sevenoaks, here I am popping up in the paper here'.

PKK: I've never felt the need. (Long pause) This is not unique to Sevenoaks.

IR: You were quite outspoken in Guernsey about their planning system.

PKK: Yes, because I saw a particular problem which I felt was an over-reliance on the finance industry. People say 'what was the problem' and the finance industry was a rock, wasn't it? It was a Northern Rock but it was a rock. What was the problem, it was never ever going to fail?

IR: But you've always kept out of political debate and discussions about the future of the town? You've always kept quiet.

PKK: But I've already made it clear to you; it's not my role to interfere and it never has been anywhere, wherever I've been and all over the UK, because I've been into areas as far north as Cumbria and many, many years developing in Wales, all in the enterprise zones. They were set up to encourage land regeneration but I always made it a clear policy of mine that I would deliver what the people wanted.

IR: Now you sound like a politician, Peter.

PKK: Well yes but I deliver.

IR: Is that the difference?

PKK: (laughing) Yes, I don't say I'm going to deliver, I actually deliver and that's very different.

IR: You've been adamant about what you've achieved in Sevenoaks. Do you think you're popular in Sevenoaks?

PKK: I've no idea, what's that got to do with it?

IR: I'm just curious, people like to be popular.

PKK: Popularity is not something I particularly worry about. It's the same with my business activities, I can't be liked by everybody and whether people like me or don't like me, if they're good at their job and they do what they have to do then that's fine, I don't have a particular problem with that. So I don't have an ego that needs to be bolstered. It'll be interesting to see how that comes out in print.

IR: In hindsight, go back nine, 10 years and do Bligh's again, is there anything you'd do differently?

PKK: No, not of any substance. I wouldn't like to even endeavour to count the number of developments I've done over the years but I've tried to work on the principle always that I would never wish to return somewhere and deny I was responsible.

IR: But for a developer that's quite a statement. When newspapers write about developers, developers are among the least possible people.

PKK: I don't know whether we rank slightly higher or lower than politicians, actually, interesting debate that. But if you look around London for instance and walk down Regent Street or Oxford Street, of course they were all built at a time by developers.

If you go to the great city of Bath, it didn't just grow, it was built by developers. I like to think, because of the particular nature of the development I've done, I'd like to think I've made a useful contribution to the community in which I've worked. I didn't go in there just for the sake of making money. You make money out of it but you don't go out there deliberately with that purpose.

IR: How much money do you reckon you've spent in your life?

PKK: (Laughing) Damn hearing aid's gone again. I do have this problem with my hearing, I'm sorry, it comes and goes.

IR: You must have thought about it though.

PKK: No I haven't really. I did once try to tot up how many millions of square feet I've built.

IR: How close did you get?

PKK: I've no idea, I gave up in the end but I was one of the first private developers to go into what is now London Docklands. You could never, ever have envisaged what it is now.

IR: So what would you change about Bligh's?

PKK: Well as I said to you, nothing of substance.

IR: Would you have considered doing some sort of decked car park there by building underneath? Was that an option?

PKK: I doubt even now if you did that it could be financially viable. Underground car parks are very expensive things to build. As part of the London Road redevelopment scheme the approved plans did actually come under part of the existing Bligh's car park – about 40 spaces I think were achieved underneath the Bligh's car park.

Bligh's was a very difficult scheme to do, shoehorning a scheme into the centre of a historic town is never easy. Obviously it was disruptive but I don't think it was total disruption; I think we probably caused less destruction than building a new gas main for the third or fourth time down the High Street.

IR: You may not live here but you're patently aware, obviously, of the frustrations of those that do.

PKK: (Laughing) Yes and when we've finished doing the gas main we'll put a water main down as well. But that probably causes more disruption than building Bligh's.

IR: Is Sevenoaks still an attractive place for shops? It often suffers, you see, from its reputation of being affluent.

PKK: Oh yes, as a shopping destination it's very popular, it's highly regarded and you only have to see by the number of retailers and the fact that, even in the current times, we haven't really got many empty shops. It's a popular retail location and it's quite a popular location too for certain types of small, professional business. It's very easy to get to London, 40 minutes on the train yet it's somewhere we all want to live.

IR: But not somewhere you want to live because you prefer to live on an island, Guernsey?

PKK: Well also you have to be realistic, as I have business interests in Ireland, Italy, the UK, Sevenoaks and therefore it's a compromise. Before I moved to Guernsey I lived near Reading and that was when my office was in Reading for a strategic purpose because I was on the hub of the motorway network and/or the train network and aviation.

Now I'm retired.

IR: You keep saying you're retired. What are you retired from? You're still actively involved in Bligh's.

PKK: (Laughing) I'm a pension trustee.

IR: So what's different now you're retired?

PKK: Well I've just come back from an epic journey on my motorcycle.

IR: I've just come back from holiday.

PKK: Yes but I'm off again, I'm off again next week for another two weeks. You're a long time dead.