EDITOR’S COMMENT “The game is the game. You’re either in it or on the sidelines moaning.”
That was a very fair response to last week’s Editor’s Comment, in which I wrote about real estate feeling left out of the new industrial strategy. “If the industry reaction to the industrial strategy is to moan ‘what about us?’, then it really needs to have a word with itself,” said Landsec managing director Chris Hogwood.
I’m minded to agree with Chris, especially as we approach the big day on which chancellor Rachel Reeves will grab her red briefcase and deliver her first Budget.
I still very much believe that real estate and the impact it can have is largely ignored or misunderstood by government; and we at EG are still very much champions of the sector and its value and will continue to use the platform we have to bang the drum as loudly as we can, but the industry does need to do the do.
It’s a bit like the saying “whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right”. What and how we think, how we behave and the actions we undertake define who we are and what people think of us.
There’s been a flurry of demands from the sector ahead of next week’s Budget, from the usual calls to reform the rates system so we can stop crippling our high streets and allow physical traders to grow and expand, to warnings over a mass exodus of investment and investors if capital gains and non-dom taxes go up, and, of course, the mass changes needed if government really wants our sector to help end the housing crisis and deliver 1.5m new homes.
Most of the demands and warnings are sound. The Radix Big Tent Housing Commission’s 15-step guide to delivering the 1,000 homes a day that are needed to reach government’s lofty ambitions doesn’t actually ask too much. It focuses on the short-term fixes, the things that could be done today to make sure that action takes place tomorrow.
The report is something of a route map to improve planning and underscores the importance of our government, in fact, all governments – present and future – understanding that housing is infrastructure and that delivery of homes doesn’t just solve the housing crisis, but helps fix issues around health, education and others too. The call for an independent committee like the Climate Change Committee to ensure and enable housing delivery, should be an easy win. And, if “the game is the game and you’re either in it or on the sidelines moaning” really is a mantra we should all take to heart, I can bet there will be a long list of people who want to be part of that committee, who want to do the do and get homes built.
How government responds to these demands will be interesting. If it listens and takes action, great. But what if it doesn’t? Or if it doesn’t go as far as we want it to? What do we do then? Do we sit on the sidelines moaning that no one understands the value of real estate, of how important it is to the UK economy, or how real estate (not just housing) is the vital infrastructure for growth, or do we get in the game? Do we form our own independent committees and make sure land, finance and development work together so we can deliver? Do we get ourselves closer to the local leaders and showcase what we can do to make their places better, leapfrogging Downing Street? If plans for more devolution really are coming, if the prime minister really does believe “those with skin in the game are the ones who know best what they need” then the opportunities for real estate to have an impact are vast.
We have skin in the game too and regardless of what is announced on 30 October, it’s time for us to show it.
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