COMMENT: The UK’s regions, and the government policy that underpins future growth and productivity across the country, are being put at the top of the real estate industry’s agenda with the launch of the British Property Federation’s Regional Policy Committee, writes Owen Michaelson, chief executive of Harworth Group
We live in strange, fractured economic times. Amid all the noise surrounding Brexit in 2018, the UK’s muted economic growth forecasts and its continuing productivity lag versus other European nations appear to have been lost.
Recent research by EY suggests that, while London will remain the highest growth area of the UK in the medium term, areas such as Harworth Group’s core region of Yorkshire – where manufacturing is enjoying a clear renaissance, with recent investments including McLaren Automotive’s new composite technology centre in Rotherham – are expected to increase their growth.
Missed opportunity
Despite this organic rebalancing, however, policy decisions are still not being taken to maximise the opportunity for further growth across the regions. Public spending in the North since 2010 has reduced at a much higher level than in the South, while infrastructure spending continues to be weighted to so-called “highest demand” areas without accounting for areas that have the ability to both grow economically and house more people.
This means there is a continued need to beat the regional drum to promote prospects and assets and to influence those in power to support rebalancing. As a result, I have been working with the British Property Federation to set up a new Regional Policy Committee in 2019 to do just this, which I will chair.
Reporting to the BPF’s main Policy Committee, a dozen or so key representatives from across the industry, including housebuilders, land developers and infrastructure specialists, will grapple with how key policy developments are planned to affect the regions and what can be done to support sustainable, long-term growth and higher-quality place-making.
Setting an example
I am clear from the outset that this will not be an orchestrated moaning session about the rights and wrongs of the present system; this is all about the industry giving practical, implementable advice to improve the areas in which we work and acting as exemplars to support this rebalancing.
The opportunity is absolutely enormous – just consider how the BBC’s move to Salford (see photo above) helped to regenerate that part of the North West, giving a young generation a plethora of opportunities that they would never have thought possible even a decade ago. We need to create more of these examples, and the work of this Committee will help to move this along.
The BPF Regional Policy Committee will meet for the first time in January and agree the three main issues that will be the focus of its work in 2019. Committees often start with unrealistic expectations, and this focus will make the most of the skills of the people around the table in the comparatively limited time we have available.
Both Melanie Leech, the BPF’s chief executive, and I will give regular updates on our progress to the BPF membership and our key stakeholders throughout the year, and I look forward to it making a powerful contribution to the UK’s economy for years to come.
