Developers need to put themselves in their stakeholders’ shoes and make a long-lasting social impact, the commercial director of Lendlease told today’s MSCI/IPF Property Investment Conference.
Bek Seeley said that although the UK is making progress, developers still need to “step back and think analytically” about their long-term impact in the community.
She said: “You’ve got to be with the stakeholders and walk in their shoes. It’s about being out there and understanding the communities you’re working with.”
Pointing to Lendlease’s Elephant and Castle regeneration, SE1, she said there were opportunities to get communities involved in developments. About 500 disadvantaged people in the area were given jobs on the scheme.
She said the industry has to think about how it addresses the ongoing health and safety of residents.
Turning to development finance, Seeley and Dan Nicholson, managing director and head of UK at Tishman Speyer, highlighted that development finance is still hard to secure in the UK.
Bill Hughes, head of real assets at Legal & General Investment Management, said banks have become more rational since the financial crisis, but being risk-averse could lead to an undersupply of new buildings.
Hughes said: “There is a potential issue for the UK economy going forward because businesses will need well-specified modern space, and they may not be able to wait to prelet or have the wherewithal to prelet.
“There is a tipping point at which the UK economy struggles with having too little options, which I think is a suffocator and a suppressant to growth.”
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