The British Property Federation has mapped out a manifesto that it says will give the real estate industry a clear role in helping the next government bolster economic prosperity.
The organisation said it is seeking to partner with government to stimulate economic growth, reinvigorate town centres, solve the housing crisis and decarbonise society.
BPF chief executive Melanie Leech described the manifesto as “a really important offer to make to the next government” ahead of a general election likely to be called before the year is out.
“There’s a huge amount of private-sector capital out there wanting to invest across the world and the UK property sector has always been high on the list of opportunities for them to place their money, but global capital has choices and it can’t be taken for granted,” she said, speaking at a roundtable discussion launching the manifesto.
The four-point plan focuses on building for growth and productivity; producing more, better quality homes; creating stronger town centres; and expanding green building.
Key proposals within these areas include a call for “a radical reset of the partnership between government and business” through more collaboration and greater numbers of public-private partnerships.
Also high on the list of priorities is the need for a clear target of at least 30,000 build-to-rent homes per year and an increase in subsidy levels by £9bn-£14bn to provide 145,000 new affordable homes.
“I would like whatever government it is that comes in next to have a long-term vision for housing,” said Helen Gordon, chief executive of Grainger, also speaking at the launch roundtable.
“We need the government to understand that housing hasn’t proved to be one of the most successful investible sectors but there is a weight of money that is willing to invest in shared ownership, social housing, build to rent and a comprehensive view of housing strategy is what we really need,” she added.
Other guests at the roundtable included Mark Allan, chief executive of Landsec and president of the BPF, SEGRO chief executive David Sleath, British Land boss Simon Carter, Bill Hughes, global head of real assets at Legal & General Investment Management, and Allan Lockhart, chief executive at NewRiver REIT.
Much of the conversation was dominated by planning, including the need for greater resources, to speed up the delivery of homes and jobs, meet green targets and support the demand for logistics space.
Attendees stressed the importance of attracting and retaining talent to the sector and the importance of aiding change of use and speeding up processing.
“It’s important to try and find ways to make improvements within the existing constraints [and planning system], rather than saying we need to look for new primary legislation to change things,” said Allan.
“For the first time that I can remember, we’re going into an election cycle where every major party knows they can’t raise taxes, knows they can’t borrow more, desperately needs to find growth and productivity and needs investment to stimulate that, and we as a sector are a source of investment.
“We want to invest, and we want to invest more. Streamlining and making the planning sector something that is an enabler of development rather than too often something that acts as a break on development and investing in our built environment is for me, the big win that’s here.”
Allan continued: “I would say over half of what we want to achieve, we can achieve through the current system through resourcing it, making sure that decisions are made at the right levels and are proportionate, and by streamlining the scale of consultations and documents that are produced to support planning decisions at every level.”
This call was backed by other attendees, including British Land’s Carter, who added: “A combination of quick wins and fundamental planning reform will get us a long way.”
“What’s been pretty encouraging is in terms of engagement with both the government and the opposition, is that they’re interested in wanting to get into the detail, and I haven’t seen that in a long time,” said Carter. “You often get round table discussions [with politicians] that are done at a very senior level but actually, they didn’t want to see Mark and I – they want to see the people who really understand this detail and want to go through it.”
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