COMMENT The ongoing global economic turbulence created by Donald Trump continues to challenge governments around the world. I feel for chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose Spring Statement risked being out of date as soon as it was delivered (if not before), and who in some respects can only wait and see what the next few months will bring and then try and figure out a response ahead of her Autumn Budget.
In times of turbulence, it’s a good idea to go back to the fundamentals and focus on pulling the levers that you can control rather than try and second-guess the ones that you can’t.
Under strain
Real estate as a sector is relatively protected from trade disputes and tariffs although parts of our customer base will not be so fortunate. It is worth noting that the logistics and industrial sector may have a key role to play in helping to secure the UK’s manufacturing and industrial resilience in the face of global disruption to trade and increasing concerns around global security.
Next, we should feel positive that the chancellor doubled down on her pledge to “back the builders”, and there can be no doubt that this government fully recognises the role of development in driving the economy.
Building on the National Planning Policy Framework changes consulted on last year, there are further positive moves on reform in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, with measures to simplify brownfield development, introduce strategic planning mechanisms for ‘larger than local’ decisions and a range of actions to improve the effectiveness of local decision-making.
Planning reform is critical to delivering economic growth and homes – but not sufficient on its own. To capitalise fully on the opportunities planning reform could unlock, the government must work with us to create viability through the strategic deployment of public sector assets and funding partnering with private capital and expertise.
We have seen a welcome funding commitment on construction skills, but we cannot ignore that local authority planning departments remain under huge strain and are not equipped to support the building boom the chancellor envisages. The government has committed to fund 300 additional planners – fewer than one per local authority – but this is simply not enough. Our view is that 3,000 are needed, with a parallel commitment to digitise the system to streamline a very labour-intensive process.
Foremost for the sector right now is the current performance of the Building Safety Regulator. The regulator is under-resourced and its outsourced processing model and internal inefficiencies have led to long delays costing the industry millions of pounds and stopping the delivery of much-needed homes.
In our view the regulator has also been too reticent in supporting the sector to understand and operate responsibly within the new regime and we urgently need to find a way through these issues in order to tackle the significant delays in passing Gateway 2 before construction can begin, but also to ensure the subsequent steps in the process can be met in a timely way.
Quick wins
Our industry is both global and local. The global headwinds continue to blow but close to home a number of things remain clear. The country needs more homes and modern workplaces to build a more resilient growth economy. It needs the infrastructure to support modern life such as warehousing and logistics, and we need to compete for investment.
These are reasons to stay confident for the future. There are certainly some quick wins within the chancellor’s grasp. It’s the BPF’s job to make sure the government is clear what needs to be done and what can be delivered as a result.
Melanie Leech, chief executive, British Property Federation
