The property industry reacted with disappointment to the exclusions in this year’s Budget and with cautious optimism to the boost to housing.
Business rates
Edward Cooke, director of policy, British Council of Shopping Centres
“Deeper into the detail, this Budget recognises the changing face of modern retail. The government will consult further on use class orders and the potential to change retail into residential without the need for planning permission.
“However, the silence was deafening today on the issue of business rates. It’s one of the largest operating costs for the retail industry, and set to increase by a further £875m over the next five years. And with the continued government intransigence on postponing the revaluation, it’s important to see through the gloss of today’s announcements.”
David Jones, senior director, GVA
“A missed opportunity by the chancellor to use business rates as an effective fiscal stimulus to help business in the UK. We are disappointed but not surprised that rate bills’ annual increases have not been moved from the RPI to the lower CPI inflation index from 2014.
“This Budget also includes no major overhaul to empty rates which the government continues to employ as a blunt instrument to raise £1bn additional tax revenue, significantly adding to the cost of holding all-time high levels of vacant property.”
Paul Easton, head of business rates, Edward Symmons Group
“There will be widespread disappointment that, as anticipated by many ratepayers, business groups and the property profession, the chancellor has decided to focus in other directions and there is nothing that will help the hard-pressed business ratepayer and ease any pain they have particularly with the postponement of the next revaluation from 2015 to 2017.”
Infrastructure
Mark Bourgeois, managing director of shopping centres, Capital & Regional
“Town centres across the UK are crying out for investment. The chancellor’s announcement to increase infrastructure spending is a step in the right direction and will hopefully encourage development in our town centres. However, the devil is in the detail and it will be cautiously welcomed by a retail industry that is questioning just how the government will allocate this investment to the places it is needed most.”
Richard Abadie, global head of Infrastructure, PwC
“Regrettably the announced sum is insignificant relative to the infrastructure backlog and while we welcome the announced £3bn of cost-savings from various government departments, the reality is that it won’t make a significant impact on economic growth as it comprises less than 0.2% of GDP.”
Housing
Ian Fletcher, director of policy, British Property Federation
“This is a strong package of help for housing. Annual transactions are half what they were and that has knock-on consequences for all those parts of the economy that rely on people moving. Helping people needing a deposit has for some time been cited as the missing piece of a coherent housing policy and is therefore welcome.”
Stewart Baseley, executive chairman, Home Builders Federation
“A lack of affordable mortgage availability remains the biggest constraint on housing supply, something the government now clearly understands and is looking to address. Extending New Buy to the secondhand market should create churn in the market place and drive up sales across the board – including for new homes. We do, though, need to ensure a level playing field across the whole market. The government must be praised for its attempts to stimulate activity, but it must also be wary to get the details right.”
Gerry Hughes, senior director, GVA
“The five-fold increase in the Build to Rent fund will undoubtedly assist a sector that is struggling severely. However, more direct intervention is required to facilitate the delivery of schemes stalled by significant infrastructure costs.”
Colin Wilson, head of DTZ in UK & Ireland
“The reality is that it is going to be a long, hard climb back to pre-downturn levels of housing completions. The house building industry has lost a lot of capacity in the past few years and that means we have to create new development models to get homes built in larger numbers and support the UK construction industry.”
