Dan Labbad, chief executive of Lend Lease’s EMEA business, said today that John Lewis’s decision to pull out of the developer’s £700m Tithebarn scheme in Preston was not a surprise.
Labadd admitted that “patience is an issue” as companies consider the timing of the recovery, but argued that the scheme would have been successful in better market conditions.
Last week, John Lewis announced it had ended discussions with Lend Lease about taking a 230,000 sq ft anchor department store at Tithebarn. Lend Lease is now working with Preston council to revise the project.
Speaking to Estates Gazette editor Damian Wild at a Profile Network event, held in association with estatesgazette.com, Labbad said: “We knew that things were precarious because of what is happening outside London, but we still believe in the regions.”
He added that he is positive for the outlook of the UK retail market, but that recovery is slower than expected. “I absolutely believe in retail in this country, but it won’t recover as quickly as we had hoped a couple of years ago,” he said.
Labbad, who is chairman of the UK Green Building Council, also urged the government to provide a clear definition of sustainable development as it overhauls the planning system through its National Planning Policy Framework. He said: “It could hurt the property industry and the countryside if the government does not get it right. But it might also force us to think about how to define it.”
Labbad also shared his fears on the industry’s future, but stated his belief that Britain is underdeveloped from a regeneration perspective.
“I worry about property. Affordable housing is in crisis, infrastructure is expensive and there is not much debt out there, although there is equity. There are a lot of challenges ahead. We need to get smarter about how we build our cities and about how we link the economic hubs of this country.”
He added that, while his native Australia and the Asia Pacific region is performing well, the future remains bright for the western economies. “There will be a time in the not-too-distant future when Europe and the US re-emerge, and it is all about identifying the opportunities now.”
Click below to view an extract from today’s Face-to-Face interview with Dan Labbad, or head to Estates Gazette’s YouTube channel.
daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com
