WATCH: The industry must take a more innovative approach to housing in the capital in order to attract and retain the talent that is essential to London’s success, according to a panel of experts at EG’s London Question Time debate
London’s population is set to reach 10m within 15 years, bringing housing provision into sharp focus. However, with delivery rates of 30,000 homes a year falling well short of the 50,000 mayoral target, there is a compelling requirement to examine measures as yet unexplored.
A lack of accommodation also threatens to turn away the talent that is essential to London’s ability to be globally competitive.
These were the main themes drawn from EG’s latest London Question Time event, which attracted 300 industry professionals into Land Securities’ recently completed City office scheme, 1 New Ludgate, EC4.
Debate panellist Richard Cook, head of residential at Lend Lease, set the tone.
“We have to start innovating,” he said. “We have to look at the communities which we build in and listen to people. You can’t have any one silver bullet, but there are lots of good initiatives coming through.
“The political consensus is that there is a need for housing and we need to turn that into real leadership through central and local government and the Greater London Authority.
“As developers we need economic stability. If we have all our ducks in a row, there is a good chance of meeting that target going forward.”
Kaela Fenn-Smith, head of commercial at Land Securities, called for faster improvements to infrastructure, while Bobby Hashemi, founder of Pizza Union and Coffee Republic, warned that a lack of affordable housing would also have a detrimental effect on restaurants and retail.
The idea of a London restaurant-based business with staff living outside the M25 was “pushing it”, he said.
The panel was asked whether the property industry should consider supporting its new London-based staff through initiatives like that of KPMG, which subsidises London living costs for its junior employees.
Mark Ridley, chief executive of Savills UK and Europe, recognised that companies needed to be more flexible on wages. He said: “We need to try to source opportunities for [employees], that may be by way of flexible loans, and ensure they can live within a London environment.
“We are looking at direct intervention and it makes people realise the company is doing more than paying them a wage. It is trying to help them with their lives.”
Cook said that flexible working was another way to combat living costs.
“Health and wellbeing are very important to what we do and 70% of our organisation is probably working flexibly, which also deals with the infrastructure issue.”
Fenn-Smith added that a strong talent pool and flagship employers had to go hand in hand as a catalyst for success in the city.
An old boys’ club?
Hale Sanusi of CBRE questioned whether the industry was an “old boys’ club” which was missing out on key talent by not casting its net far or deep enough.
Although companies had missed opportunities, they were now reaching a much healthier pool of graduates, said Ridley, but reaching young people earlier was key in keeping diversity high on the agenda.
“We are trying to ensure education at a much earlier level about careers in property gets to those dusty classrooms, and it has got to be all schools – not just schools which have traditionally fed into universities. Because all of our clients are diverse, we have to make sure we are reflecting that in our own businesses.”
Fenn-Smith agreed. She said while it had been acknowledged that the property industry had “historically been an old boys’ club”, companies must now think creatively about sourcing employees at all levels from different cultural and economic backgrounds.
“It has absolutely been proven those with diverse boards and talent pools are showing better returns.
“We as an industry need to continue to bring that diverse mix to senior management so that those trying to come through don’t just see middle class white men at the top and need to know they can get there and not be lonely,” she said.
What’s the next threat?
The debate took a political turn and Hugo Clarke of Capital Real Estate asked panellists whether Chinese economic decline or Brexit posed a greater threat to the industry.
Ridley said the perceptions of a Chinese slowdown were “overblown”, proof of which was the 4% of Chinese inward investment into the UK.
On Brexit, he said: “A number of cross-border investors are concerned about whether we would ‘Brexit’, but once uncertainty is out of the way, if it ever came to it and there was a trade agreement, the investment would continue; I don’t think it would be a fatal blow.”
London’s amazing image
Turning to London, its future as an investment hotspot and the impending 2016 mayoral election, Alex Price, chief executive of Palmer Capital, said: “London is a marketing story more than anything else and we have an amazing global perception that has been built off a great pitch from Boris Johnson. We need the next mayor to continue that.”
Thinking towards the future
How can scientific, technological, academic and commercial bodies be brought together to create a platform to discuss new forms of commerce and architecture?
This was the question asked in a pre-debate presentation by Rachel Armstrong, professor of experimental architecture at Newcastle University.
The talk covered the concept of “black-sky thinking” – exploring ideas for which there is no precedent, such as enabling unoccupied buildings to sustain an ecology.
Armstrong used BIQ House in Hamburg as an example of a building with panels of algae, explaining how micro-organisms could work within structures to produce biomass, generating green fuel to power cars and heat buildings.
Microbial fuel cell technology is also being explored, taking microbes and bacteria separated by a membrane to produce electricity – encouraging dialogue between green and grey technologies to perform functions such as cleaning water.
Armstrong said: “These can be prototypes for possibilities in which we all have a vested opportunity for change. This is a play on Arthur C Clarke’s notion that every sufficiently advanced technology is akin to magic. When we have these infrastructural changes, what we get are technologies that are almost indistinguishable from nature.”
Listen to the debate at www.estatesgazette.libsyn.com
Watch the highlights at www.estatesgazette.com/videos
Follow the debate on Twitter at #EGQTLondon
