The response to the Building a Better Britain campaign launched by Estates Gazette last week has been overwhelming. My inbox began to fill up with expressions of support on Friday morning. The deluge continued through the weekend and deep into this week. I hope I replied to each of you; if I didn’t, I apologise. Rest assured, your offers of support will all be taken seriously.
Responses came from across the property spectrum. Local authorities, charities and politicians told us they wanted to get involved. Advisers, developers, lawyers and architects too. Bankers and investors, academics and students have asked how they can contribute.
As individuals, they range from some of the industry’s best-known names to those at the grass roots, who have been working tirelessly and away from the limelight for years.
Working with UK Regeneration, our challenge over the next few weeks is to marshall this support. As I wrote last week: “Turning well-meaning sentiment into constructive action is what our campaign is about.”
So we’re working on putting together a commission that will be tasked with creating a blueprint setting out how property can contribute to repairing the physical and psychological damage done.
Already, many contributors have put forward insightful proposals. We want to ensure we draw on as many ideas as we can. That’s why we’re working on a series of events to run through the autumn. In the next few weeks we’ll bring you more details of an event we’re staging with UK Regeneration in December. In the meantime, we’re putting on our first event next month.
Staged with Weber Shandwick, I’ll be joining invited speakers from leading think tanks, parliament and the major cities for the first in-depth debate on how we recapture the reputation of Britain’s cities.
For details of the EG/Weber Shandwick event, e-mail ABratcher@WeberShandwick.com
Seeing the bigger picture and looking beyond the short term is what this industry is so good at (and so much better at than politicians, as recent events have shown). And the support already lent to our campaign is a very real example of the industry at its best.
But it’s not the only one.
In Clapham, south London, Bells Commercial is helping The Party Superstore find temporary premises. Its store was destroyed by a fire during the riots, and Bells is donating its acquisition fee to charity.
Capital & Regional and Aviva Investors, meanwhile, have offered financial support to some of the worst-hit riot victims within their Mall Fund. A number of stores in the Mall’s Walthamstow and Wood Green shopping centres were vandalised and looted.
There will be other examples, no doubt. And for landlords looking to act but unsure how best to do so, the British Property Federation and law firm Hogan Lovells have drafted a letter that shows landlords how to give affected businesses the chance to defer rental payment as they get back on their feet.
The Local Data Company estimates that 48,804 shops, pubs, restaurants and clubs have suffered directly or indirectly in the 28 town centres affected by the disorder. Of these, independent outlets were hit particularly hard. With numbers like that, no one is underestimating the scale of the task we have set ourselves.
But this can be a catalyst for change.
Respondents to our latest Big Question poll have also come forward with ideas: from offering affected businesses premises on short lets to softening streetscapes so that people are proud of their areas and less likely to destroy them. But most of them believe it is long-term thinking around urban renewal that will provide the answer.
That’s what our campaign is all about. To get involved, e-mail betterbritain@estatesgazette.com
