Estates Gazette’s Question Time visited Bristol last week with a bumper crowd packed into the Arnolfini – the room used recently for Star Wars auditions, we were told.
And the Force was certainly with our panellists as they fielded a barrage of questions from the floor on topics ranging from office to residential conversion to the thorny issue of residents’ parking.
Estates Gazette editor Damian Wild took on the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi chairing the event with George Ferguson, mayor of Bristol; Andrew Main, head of Savills ?Bristol; Gavin Bridge director of Cubex; ?Ross Polkinghorne, partner, Burges Salmon; and Tom Beale, financial director, Coexist, taking on the roles of Jedi Knights on the panel.
George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, on…
…affordable housing targets
The 1,000 [homes a year target] may not be reached until about 2017 or 2018 but nevertheless we’re going to have an absolute step change in the deliverability of affordable housing… we will be building some of our own homes, using our land as a developer and sometimes in partnership. We have 28,000 homes of our own and we should be able to borrow against that, but the government doesn’t allow us to. For every job that one uses building a new home, you create another three or four.
…residential development
I’m not worried about whether the private sector is going to work or not. I think we’ve got a big challenge unsticking some of the stalled sites into worthwhile development because some of those are old planning ?permissions that could be done a bloody sight better than they are.
…office-to-resi conversion damaging office supply
There’s about 2 m sq ft of it [old office stock] and it will take quite a long time to reach that level of demand. At Hamilton House they have done an amazing job ?showing imaginative things you can do with old office blocks. And let’s do more of it – it is much better to fill one up at £7 per sq ft than have one empty at £20 per sq ft.
…the council’s reticence to regear leases
I think we have been far too conservative about our land ownerships and the way we deal with them. We’ll be open to offers. I don’t say we’ll accept every offer and idea but we are certainly open to being more flexible than we have in the past.
… residents’ parking
I think that Bristol as an attractive city is much more important than the total freedom of everybody to move around in their car at any time… we are looking at being flexible about it.
There is an element of suck it and see and it is not all coming in at once and I did draw it back from an extra 18 to an extra 10 so there are eight fewer zones than were originally intended because I did listen. u
Gavin Bridge, director, Cubex, on…
…Bristol’s reputation for resisting change
I think Bristol is well thought of by the ?London-based investors and I think we perhaps look back too much when we should be looking forward.
I’ve been working in Bristol for 15 years now and I know Bristol did have that ?reputation but I think that’s changed dramatically in the past few years… we only find an open door when we speak to the city council.
…residential development
It’s a lack of sites, I think, is the struggle that we are finding at the moment… Demand is there. What I would argue is I think there are a lot of apartments being built in the city and I’d like to find sites to build houses.
…office-to-resi conversion damaging office supply
I think there is a danger that some parts of the city may become student ghettos. I think some buildings have just reached the end of their life and are not worth refurbishing.
…is ‘green city’ status good for business?
The property market misses a trick, it thinks nailing a bit of timber on the ?outside of a building or putting a wind ?turbine on the top is “green wash”, I believe is the expression.
I think what we should be selling is ?the fact that greener buildings are ?cheaper to run and energy costs are only going to go one way, and this has to be sold more.
Tom Beale, financial director, Coexist, on…
…residential development
It’s not just about ?providing housing but it’s about quality of housing, it’s about environmental quality and it’s about a sense of community right in the heart of it… there is a huge amount of energy.
…office-to-resi conversion
I think there is an appetite for it but it takes a certain amount of bravery from the people who own these buildings and the people who finance something like this. Hamilton House was seen as this horrible eyesore in the middle of a ghetto, Stokes Croft.
Stokes Croft was an area that people travelled through as quickly as possible… and the dynamic has completely changed.
We’ve seen property prices and rents in Stokes Croft go through the roof, we’ve seen shop fronts that were empty for decades opening up. The police tell us that there has been an 80% drop in street crime over the last five years.
The attitude of some of the banks that fund buildings is “better it is stood empty and not earning any money”
Attitudes when we’ve shown some ?around studios full of artists, full of ?small businesses was: “My God you’ve let your building to these people?” It can be unbelievably rude.
…is ‘green city’ status good for business?
I think there’s a huge opportunity in the green sector for individual businesses. Energy efficiency is seen to be something which doesn’t necessarily achieve market value immediately on sale but if you look at the values of houses in Ashley Vale ?[self-build eco scheme], the value of those homes rose throughout the recession.
Ross Polkinghorne, partner, Burges Salmon, on…
…Bristol’s reputation for resisting change
We do give ourselves a bit of a hard time but ?actually there is a lot of good happening in Bristol at the ?moment.
You’ve got infrastructure projects, the south Bristol link road and the Bristol Arena potentially.
The only thing I would say is, being one of a number of people here at the coal face dealing with local authorities, that the big concerns I have are the cuts and ?the resources when dealing with local authorities.
…residential development
The relaxation [of planning laws], the changes to office-to-resi conversion may help, although there are some concerns about what happens beyond three years and what you do with affordable housing in those cases because obviously it doesn’t apply in those circumstances.
There is also the question of how the public sector can help. [The council] has a big land bank, it is moving to KPMG’s building so there may be stock coming to the market.
…is ‘green city’ status good for business?
It’s been proven that there is a direct impact on jobs. Hamburg got it in 2011 ?and there were about an extra 1,000 jobs in the environmental technology sector as a result.
As well as looking forward, I think that it’s a reflection of where we are at the moment in terms of the carbon economy we have.
We have lawyers, accountants, surveyors, technical people who are some of the best in the UK and in some cases advising around the world on some cutting- edge issues.
Andrew Main, head of Savills Bristol, on…
…office-to-resi ?conversion damaging office supply
There are sufficient 1970s, slightly ugly buildings such as , Lewins Mead etc which are going to residential which will not leave us with a shortage of grade-A [offices]. We’ve got the two speculative developments going on – and Queens Square – and that is very positive that people are prepared to build speculatively.
…council’s reticence to regear leases
When I first came to Bristol, there was a standard which was to re-gear leases, which tended to be 99 years from after ?the war – 2.5% in Broadmead and 5% elsewhere and that was the standard.
Over the past 10 to 15 years that seems to have been lost and there is no real clarity as to whether the council wants capital or income and as a consequence I’m not sure if the council officers have really had the rationale to be able to do what George has said that they are going to do.
I hope very much they will do those things because a lot of those leases have things in them which make them institutionally unfundable.
…residents’ parking
There needs to be some way of implementing that [residents parking] over a period of time, perhaps with phasing, perhaps with charging in various areas and encouraging people to car share etc.
I just can’t help feeling that for employers, particularly in the city centre and in Clifton, where a number of the offices are, it’s going to be a major issue for their staff.