The autumn conference season was in full swing this week. From Birmingham to Munich, minds have been meeting, backroom deals have been struck and, no doubt, more than a few egos have clashed.
Yet for all the carbon-emitting travel and all the energy-sapping hours devoted to the gatherings, property’s prospects feel no more certain now than they did this time last week.
Pacing the cavernous halls of Expo Real in Munich at the beginning of the week – alongside twenty-odd thousand other property professionals – was an encouraging experience in some ways. There was plenty of positive chatter about prospects – in Germany, certainly, and in a handful of other locations.
But that enthusiasm was by no means universal – everyone talked of the increased polarisation between prime and secondary stock across Europe – and among the UK contingent especially, conversation was thick with caution.
And the reasons for that caution were very much linked to events in Birmingham. At the Conservative Party conference, party chiefs devoted their time to preparing the ground for what will be a landmark spending review in 11 days’ time.
As HSBC chief economist Dennis Turner writes in this week’s Estates Gazette (p64), chancellor George Osborne needs to “strike a very difficult balance between reducing the record fiscal deficit and keeping the recovery going”. Many in the property industry fear that he won’t achieve it.
Osborne’s plans may be worse than expected, though such is the nervousness around them that they may turn out to be less draconian than feared.
But at least the passing of the announcement will inject some much-needed certainty into the market.
An expected announcement on the future of the public sector property estate later this month would help, too.
But greater clarity there will only go part of the way to comforting the industry.
• It will be December before communities and local government minister Eric Pickles’s Decentralisation and Localism Bill materialises, and it may be spring or early summer before its third reading.
In fairness, there are signs the government is beginning to recognise the risk of damage that uncertainty causes. Planning minister Bob Neill told EG (p43) that the government is keen to move on tax increment financing quickly, pledging to prioritise its introduction “in the early part of this parliament”.
And Pickles himself is trying to tackle the planning void. There will be a presumption in favour of sustainable development – something that should help developers in areas that are slow to produce a local plan. And proposals in line with new neighbourhood plans would not need permission.
But without specifics, few will be fully comforted. David Cameron’s Big Society message failed to move his audience because, while it’s hard to disagree with it in spirit, it’s impossible to support without the detail being clearer.
And that’s as true for Big Society as it is for localism or TIFs. Detail is needed – and fast – if the coalition is to retain property’s goodwill.
• EstatesGazette.com’s new-look Propertylink is now live. The new site has a powerful new search engine and new content designed specifically for occupiers.
For occupiers, the site offers a clearer link to an improved “agent finder” service and “how-to” guides on everything from the complexities of business rates to the demands of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme.
Try out the site itself at www.estatesgazette.com/propertylink
damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
