5 people…

1: Ken Livingstone

In the absence of UK government ministers at the show this year, the capital's mayor Ken Livingstone was the star performer. This year Livingstone seized the opportunity to vociferously extol the benefits of giving greater planning powers to the GLA. At the London reception, the mayor said that the proposal would be good news for developers. "No developer has ever walked out of my office without a deal," he boasted. The Mipim audience's response was divided on the idea: many thought that developers would indeed get their deal, but some worried at the likely transparency of the deal-making process and at what would happen if a less development-friendly mayor took up residence in City Hall.

2: John Callcutt

Three days of rumours at Mipim were confirmed when English Partnerships chairman Margaret Ford announced that the vice-chairman of developer Crest Nicholson was to take up the chief executive's role. In his first speech in the EP role, Callcutt said: "The big issues in my in tray will be delivering volume, quality and environmental standards. Delivering those will be a formidable challenge." Callcutt will be stepping down from his post at Crest Nicholson to take up the role, which he formally starts in May.

3: Councillor Mike Whitby

Government proposals for a planning gain supplement or tax to help finance infrastructure did not win much favour with the country's second city. Birmingham council leader Mike Whitby said that the tax was not in the best interests of the city council or the developers and urged people to campaign against it. The city council was at Mipim to promote its welcoming approach to developers, which includes a strategy that enables developers to go from initial outline concept to planning within 16 weeks.

4: Steven Bee

The director of planning and development for English Heritage put the case for getting conservation and development to co-operate rather than battle with each other. Bee said: "No one has an excuse for still assuming conservation to mean strict preservation. Conservation and progress go hand in hand." Bee was speaking at the launch of Heritage Works, a publication by English Heritage, RICS, the British Property Federation and Drivers Jonas. The toolkit gives guidance on heritage-led regeneration, highlighting three factors that are key to success: understand the heritage assets, find a viable economic use, and pay the right price for the asset. Heritage Works can be downloaded via www.building.co.uk/reports.

5: Norman Foster

The top UK architect is putting the flurry of home-grown towers in the shade with his proposals for Russia's Moscow City Tower. Described as a "mixed-use, super-dense, vertical city for 25,000 people", the Foster and Partners design is 118 storeys high and is set to be Europe's tallest building. Its environmentally friendly features include triple-glazing, photovoltaic cells, rainwater and snow harvesting and waste recycling. Client on the project is the Russian STT Group. Lord Foster said: "It's like nothing that's ever been built before."