EDITOR’S COMMENT Dearest government, have you met the real estate industry? It is a sector that you absolutely love to take money from and hit with taxes. And I’m absolutely not saying that you shouldn’t do that.
It is a sector that can, and often does, make a lot of money, after all. Taking is absolutely fine. As long as it is balanced with a little bit of give. Or maybe even a little bit of thought or understanding. Even just a little bit of just trying to understand.
So why have we managed, again, to get to a point where the government has shown that it has zero understanding of the role that real estate plays in the future prosperity of our economy, the role that it plays in shaping our towns and cities, and the role that it absolutely has in planning?
I fear that government, like much of the wider population, would answer with “housing” if you were playing a round of Mallet’s Mallet and Timmy had started us off with “real estate” or “property”.
Housing, of course, is a big issue and there is much that needs to be done to fix the perennial housing problem. But housing is not the only thing made of bricks and mortar, and housing, I’m afraid, does not deliver as much to the economy as commercial property does.
There, I’ve said it. Commercial property. Those two words, dearest government, that you have failed to use anywhere in your planning reform white paper. The greatest reform of planning since the Second World War!
Commercial property – shops, factories, offices, etc – contributed more than £100bn to the economy in 2018 and supported more than 2m jobs. So I, like the British Property Federation, am completely baffled as to why commercial real estate wasn’t given proper weighting in the “most ambitious planning reforms since WWII”.
Employment space is vital if we really are to build, build, build our way to recovery. We all need somewhere to live, yes, but we also all need somewhere to work and to play, somewhere to learn, to create, to mend. And now, more than ever I would argue, commercial real estate needs the support from government and some guidance around planning as to how we as a nation are going to make sure that we have the right employment land in the right place, at the right cost.
Commercial real estate is well aware of the transformation that its landscape is going through, digitally, environmentally, societally. It would be helpful if the government was, too.
It would be helpful, would it not, if the government delved a little deeper than the surface problems. Allowing retailers to not pay their rents does not save the high street, it just kicks the can down the road. If a retailer is not making money, I’d suggest there may be a fundamental flaw in their business model. If they are making money, they should absolutely pay their dues.
If I’m not making money from my job but I have won the lottery, that doesn’t mean I can get away with not paying my mortgage, does it? (NB I’ve not won the lottery).
Focusing a planning reform on enabling the delivery of more housing does not, sadly, fix the housing problem. It will not make housing more accessible to more people, nor will it end homelessness. It will not create more jobs and it will not level up this country.
Commercial real estate will though. And the really important thing here is that it actually wants to. It has the tools and it has the will. It just needs government to listen, to understand and to take action.
So, dearest government – will you?
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
