Europe and the Portas Review were the two big issues dominating the final EG Big Question of the year.
The weekly poll, sponsored by Colliers International and Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, found that the industry was sceptical about Mary Portas’ government-backed review of town centres. More than half of respondents said they thought it was a delaying tactic.
“The ills of the high street and Portas’ reported solution to it contain nothing that is either groundbreaking or revelatory,” said respondent Julian Lochrane. “The only thing that is new – and not very helpful – is her slightly hysterical trumpeting of it. Messianic it is not.
“It should not have taken such an expensive report to explain that the planners are both the cause of, and potentially the solution to, most of the problems.”
Respondents welcomed prime minister David Cameron’s decision last week to veto an EU-wide treaty change, but were split over whether it would affect the property industry.
One respondent summed up the mood: “I don’t think Cameron’s actions were significant enough to warrant all those column inches. Cameron’s veto was inept, but then the EU’s handling of the crisis is also inept.
“If the other leaders had had any capacity for leadership they would never have let one mediocre politician mess up their strategy. The whole fiasco can be summed up in a phrase – absence of leadership.”
