COMMENT: It’s been a good year for political commentators – if not for the millions who would prefer a stable environment within which to plan house or job moves, or who are trying to build businesses and take long-term investment decisions, writes Melanie Leech
Political uncertainty has dominated the domestic agenda this year with progress (or lack of it) in the Brexit negotiations taking up hours of airtime, reams of print coverage and trending regularly across social media.
Because of the lack of substance for most of the year, the coverage has inevitably been as much about personalities and political ambition as about our future place in the world.
And the UK has not been alone in succumbing to the impact of personality-driven politics – look no further than Donald Trump’s first year as president of the USA for evidence.
It’s easy of course to get things out of proportion – there is political change across the globe and significant challenges face many governments. In that environment, the UK still looks like a good long-term proposition for global capital because of the many advantages we enjoy.
However, in the short term, you don’t need a crystal ball to predict that politics and uncertainty will continue to dominate the UK agenda in 2018.
Brexit uncertainty
Predicting the future, of course, isn’t an exact science. Prime minister Theresa May called a snap General Election earlier this year to increase her party’s majority in the House of Commons, only to learn to her dismay that she didn’t have the support she thought she had.
I doubt the PM could have anticipated that she’d be depending on votes from the DUP to prop up her government throughout the Brexit negotiations.
It’s been well over a year since the UK voted for Brexit and nine months since the UK started the two-year Brexit clock ticking.
With time passing quickly since then, the announcement last week that a deal had been done, which would allow discussions to move to the next phase, opening the door for the UK and European Commission to discuss a trade deal and transitional arrangements, was hugely welcome.
It appears both sides are now working to prevent a “no deal” scenario from becoming reality. This is good news for British business leaders who have been urging government to ensure that we avoid a cliff-edge scenario in April 2019.
For the property industry, momentum behind Brexit transitional arrangements and apparent progress towards the end-game will help sentiment in 2018. And we haven’t in any event, across the industry as a whole, seen as adverse an impact on the market as the most pessimistic had forecast.
There are many other factors at play – and in seeking to predict the future it’s as well to focus on what you do know rather than what you don’t.
Housing supply
We do know that we have a huge imbalance in this country between housing supply and demand, and a government which has made housing one of its defining domestic priorities.
The prime minister has put her personal name to this agenda – and there is a sense of real momentum with significant sums of money allocated to housing; follow-through on the multi-tenure approach and political support for the Build-to-Rent sector and the imminent birth of Homes England – the HCA with teeth?
We have seen the next steps in the government’s thinking on an industrial strategy for the UK – and its commitment to investing in the infrastructure this country needs is commendable even if the numbers don’t yet necessarily add up.
Intention and delivery
The announcement of construction amongst the small number of initial sector deals is welcome – and will require investor support, just as much as the commitment of the construction companies themselves, to drive change.
It’s essential we complement the construction sector deal with a sector deal for real estate – and we have submitted proposals to the government which we expect to discuss early in the new year.
Finally, we know that you can’t easily put the devolution genie back in the bottle, and that powerful new metro mayors of the likes of Andy Street and Andy Burnham will be impatient in their desire to drive “local agenda” focused growth, and on improving local people’s lives.
They are already making their presence felt, but we should expect the “Metro mayors” to become a lot more visible throughout next year and be actively courting the private sector as partners in their vision.
Commitment from the private sector, and ever more sophisticated public-private partnerships, will be an essential part of turning intention into delivery.
So, 2018 is likely to be a year of both challenge and opportunity for our sector. To finish on a positive note however – whatever the short-term challenges, I am fully confident about the future health of our industry.
The recent launch of BPF Futures (our network for young professionals) amply demonstrated to me that whilst we have much more to do to attract and retain a diverse range of employees, we already have within our industry a huge number of highly committed and talented individuals who will lead our future and shape our nation’s physical fabric in the decades to come.
Melanie Leech is chief executive of the British Property Federation
