Pick your priority: HS2 or HS3? Gatwick or Heathrow? Affordable or intermediate housing? The right answer is all of the above.
The need for continual infrastructure investment matters hugely to this industry and to UK plc. It drives investment, development and placemaking. And, at a time of political and economic uncertainty, its need only grows.
All this adds importance to a plum job, which comes up for grabs this week: the National Infrastructure Commission is looking for a new chair.
Chancellor Philip Hammond said that he would put the commission – launched by his predecessor George Osborne this time last year – on a permanent footing. He has made it independent of government – yes, we’ll reserve judgment there too – but, significantly, he has recruited go-to-infrastructure-guy Sir John Armitt to the cause.
Armitt will be interim deputy chair, with Lord Adonis interim chair. Adonis is the former Labour transport secretary who has led the commission since launch. Armitt, of course, is the former chief executive of Network Rail and led on delivery of the infrastructure behind the London 2012 Summer Olympics.
As a leadership team, they would make a powerful combination and the chances of delivering infrastructure renewal nationally would be greatly improved by their permanent appointment. That may yet happen. Meanwhile the commission is also looking for board members to drive forward vital, urgent work, not least in making long-term infrastructure recommendations to government.
Whether it is digital, housing, transport or utilities infrastructure, this has to happen in a more effective way than it does at present.
Perhaps the imminent announcement of how the government intends to increase airport capacity is acting as a spur? Decisive action here – which means a decision to back Heathrow alone or Heathrow and Gatwick – would do more than anything to convince that the government is serious about infrastructure and that this commission will have teeth.
• A private equity-backed new kid on the block is going around buying up smaller advisers. Its sights are set on building a challenger to the industry’s established, dominant big players. This new business is itself led by one of the industry’s biggest hitters, the former chief executive of one of those global giants.
OK, this isn’t property – though there are parallels with Cushman & Wakefield, DTZ and former CBRE big cheese Brett White. It is accountancy, where CogitalGroup, backed by HgCapital and led by ex-Deloitte boss John Connolly, launched this week and set out further plans for sector consolidation.
As has been proven previously in so many areas – not least in the emerging dominance of specialist boutiques and global giants, with a squeezed middle facing an uncertain future in-between – where the accountancy sector leads, property agency tends to follow. Could a bottom-up consolidator emerge in the agency world? I wouldn’t be surprised.
• From bake-offs to office chair races, Thursday’s LandAid day was set to be a riot of determination, ingenuity and competition: very property, in other words. With a space theme this year, RICS employees had set themselves a team challenge to cycle the distance to the moon. Frogmore was running a rocket-building competition, while Palmer Capital is running a money-maker challenge with teams looking to turn an investment of £250 into a much more substantial pot. (At the time of writing, Team EG was not troubling the top of the leader board.)
More than 60 businesses were planning something remarkable to raise £150,000 for young people who are homeless. Send images, tales of success and videos to sharon.harnett@estatesgazette.com. We would especially love to see the “never-seen-before footage” of Mace chief executive Mark Reynolds revealing what he wanted to be when he grows up. We will compile the best bits next week.
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