February 2012 Archives

"We're going through the biggest change we've seen in the civil service since the second world war," Bob Kerslake is reported to have said at the BPF Residential Dinner last night. Seems like a pretty hard-hitting statement.  Until, that is, you realise you could substitute the words "the property industry" or "the health service" or "the police service" or "the armed forces" or "the publishing industry" or, indeed, almost any service or industry or sector or walk of life, for the words "the civil service" and that statement would be true. I mean...the banking sector, anyone?
 
All we can be sure of in this world is that there is nothing we can be sure of.
 
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this world on which you can depend. (Just look around you! Blimey, you could have knocked me down wiv a feather, Lord Copper, when I got the news that my very good mate Digby Flower - not just Hillier Parker man-and-boy, but very nearly a personal friend of Mr May and Mr Rowden in 1896 - is leaving CBRE to go to Cushman & Wakefield. Who could Adam and Eve it? It is quite staggering! A triumph for C&W of course, to get the Biggest Beast in the jungle into their fold, it moves them into a different league really, and they've pulled a blinder here. Digby is an amazing individual, the most cerebral, and certainly the best organised, agent I have ever met. And he has a very good heart.  But he is still an agent through and through.  Absolutely extraordinary.  Congratulations to him and to C&W.) 

Four days now then.  Are you panicking? I certainly am...
 


And it's been a long year since our last MIPIM.  A lot has happened.  So without much ado, you can expect me to be giving a full report of progress at our two UKR events on the first day we are there.  

My congratulations (yet again!) are due to Nottingham.  This time because the city has won an award as a "top 10 city in Europe and ranked as a leading European city of the future" according to new research from FDI Intelligence (aka the Financial Times to thee and me). Apparently, the rather grand sounding "FDI European Cities and Regions of the Future 2012/13", which is produced every two years, reveals that in terms of human resources, Nottingham is the second-best micro-city in Europe. Just behind Oxford, which is in the top slot.  

There was a lot going on last night and it is a sad fact of life that you can't be in two places at once.  I was sorry to have to miss the Mishcon de Reya party, as it is always a stylish affair (and by all accounts this year was no exception).  However, by the same token, you'll appreciate I wasn't in the least bit sorry to be missing the Land Aid CBRE Property Peak Challenge, although I followed on Twitter (!) and was greatly amused by tales of the ambulance standing by (blimey, I'd nearly had a heart attack earlier in the day hiking up and down the hills of Sheffield with the ever-energetic Tim Bottrill of Knight Frank!)  But my huge congratulations to all that took part in that noble effort, I understand huge piles of wonga were raised for Land Aid and I trust you all enjoyed your beer at the summit.  Good on you, Joanna and team.  Well done to all.  
 
But I had a prior engagement to both of these. I was extremely privileged to be invited to an event at the Portuguese Embassy last night doncha know?  In one of the most elegant endeavours I have encountered, it was a joy to rock up and support Carolyn and Robin Butler (yes, that's right, our Robin Butler, Urban & Civic and ex-Chelsfield Robin Butler) who have launched a Portuguese wine importing business, with - but of course (doesn't everybody?) - a wine tasting at the Portuguese Embassy.  And what a glittery affair it was!  Despite the rival events last night, a huge number of the property crowd crammed in to taste the reds, the whites, the roses and the dessert wines. 

I was out and about this week (winging around the country), so forgive the slight break in transmission.  Sadly I missed the event at the RICS the other day to launch the new Joseph Rowntree Forum report on sustainable urban neighbourhoods.  I was sorry to not have been there, as I understand it was an interesting debate, with highly topical findings.  

Apparently the wondrous Terrie Alafat of CLG spoke up at the event, implying there would be new policy initiatives coming along on housing.  Our mole reported that she used the phrases "something like housing enterprise zones" and "TIF2".  Needless to say I put Dr Evans straight onto the scent, and we will report back.  

There was also continued discussion about the private rented market and institutional investors which seems to be gaining momentum, as we've observed before. All of this is grist to the UKR mill, of course, and it is indeed very comforting to know you have tapped into a zeitgeist. The JRF Report identifies seven steps to achieving sustainable urban neighbourhoods:  
· agree the spatial framework;
· facilitate public-private development partnerships;
· mobilise public undesignated land;
· attract private funding for infrastructure;
· open up housing markets;
· endow community stewardship;
· learn from what works.

Coming fresh form the compilation of the Urban Regeneration Dictionary (as reported in this blog on Tuesday 11 February) the news today that consultancy Arup has been appointed "to coordinate the work for the environmental impact assessment (EIA)" into the planned HS2 link between London and Birmingham has caused immense mirth and merriment around the UKR camp.  Nobody disputes the appointment, of course, as everybody loves Arup.  And they are the obvious cross-disciplinary practice to use really. They are also our esteemed neighbours, as the UKR office is also in Fitzroy Square (theirs is perhaps just a little grander). 

But having only just issued our definition of an EIA as "an earnest and exhaustive combination of the obvious, the speculative and the impossible-to-know" the UKR team believes that the HS2 EIA will have to be the Mother of All EIAs ever!  Blimey, it will even put that for T5 to shame, we reckon.  Mutterings to the effect of "Coordinate the work huh! More like co-ordinating the convoy of pantechnicons necessary to carry such an EIA" and "just how many forests will be felled to achieve this extraordinary feat" and "think of the expense" through to a mere collapse-in-a-heap-burying-your-head-in-your-hands "why oh why". 

Some years ago, the über-intellectual (and lovely man) Robert Cowan published a dictionary of urban regeneration terms.  This was a serious and highly regarded piece of work which comprehensively defined and explained regeneration words and phrases. 

At the time nobody demurred, or expressed any surprise at all really, that we needed such a regeneration dictionary to explain how people live in cities and towns; the regeneration sector in which I was reared carried an acceptance (I think mainly informed by architects and planners) that our field is highly technical in nature (readers of this blog will know that I now question all of that these days).  

The sainted Keith Mitchell of Peter Brett Associates (transport engineers and environmental consultants to those of a thoughtful and philosophical bent) has written a seminal series of articles for UKR which are pretty well required reading if you want a real-world take on what is going on in the infrastructure arena.  
 
We haven't heard much comment on the National Infrastructure Plan in recent weeks and I was reminded of this when listening to Stuart Fraser of the City of London and Brendan Barber of the TUC debating the future of banking on R4 Today programme on Friday morning (now bear with me here).  There seems to be a consensus emerging that the City has become a global leviathan, and that "British banking" (or banking services for Britain) is something of an endangered species.  (Rather amusingly, the Today programme juxtaposed this item with a piece about the terminal decline of certain Gaelic dialects on the islands of Lewis and South Uist, without any obvious sense of irony whatsoever). Indeed, we recently - unconsciously - picked this up in the EG/UKR Build a Better Britain Regeneration Commission in the last few months, with our idea for a "local investors club". 
 
My thesis is this: the (uncertain) future for British banking and the National Infrastructure Plan are two strands of activity vital to rebuilding the British economy, surely? Couldn't we usefully consider them together, just for a moment or two?  As Keith Mitchell has commented, we "really welcome the push on infrastructure, but the net additional money and new starts in the short term seem limited, with reliance on longer-term money via the pension funds".  And it does seem to be something of a mystery as to whether the pension fund proposition is a reworked PFI or something else.  Just how will it work?  There is much muttering about putting the pension funds to work locally but I haven't as yet seen a readily accessible model. 

So the wondrous Matthew Hopkinson of the Local Data Company has produced figures today revealing that one in seven of our high street shops, nationally, is vacant.  And this figure is "set to rise" in 2012.  Matthew's such a good lad, and he always has his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist (er...if that's possible?).  And he is to be seriously congratulated on making the dizzy heights of the news bulletin on R4 Today this morning. 

Of course, if goes without saying (for readers of this blog at least) that this blanket figure hides some shockers - it is one in three shops void in Stockport, apparently.  And, of course, other places are faring rather better: it is less than one in ten in St Albans.  And as we all know... under localism these disparities only stand to widen...
 
Is anyone surprised, I wonder?  

Put out the bunting.  Nottingham city council has been on the Bob Martins again. And hurrah for that!  A new economic plan for Nottingham was launched at a business summit in the city last Friday, putting the emphasis firmly on growth and aiming to be "the blueprint for prosperity over the next 10 years".  Extra cheese sandwiches all round I reckon.  Quickly now. 

Sadly, I was unable to be there in person (and not just because it was a 7.30am kick-off!) but UKR was well represented.  And I hear it was a right shot in the arm. Nottingham city council, in the driving seat, sees private sector solutions as vital to many of the challenges it faces and has opened a consultation - or "a conversation" (nice!) - with the private sector over the coming weeks. 

There were about 100 senior guys from the private sector there at the summit, showing real support.  As ever, the Nottingham family sticks together and is always on-song, even in the face of a public sector document.  One business commentator summed up the report thus: "Too many recommendations, but the heart is in the right place."  And that seemed to be the general view.

Excellent showing yesterday at the UKR Forum Breakfast Briefing held at the Design Council with the immensely luminescent Peter Halsall of the Good Homes Alliance.  Some extraordinary pointers of where things stand with current house builders and the "homes" they currently deliver, bearing out the UKR thesis that the model is almost certainly broken.  And broken irrevocably.  Apparently a whopping 75% of those who have any choice in the matter would choose NOT to purchase a new house.  

And sure enough, a quick "hands up" around the audience (all, of course, fully paid up members of the professional classes) showed only one (the ever-delightful Paula Hirst of Mazars) who lives in new-build and that "not through choice I assure you".  The rest of us, to a woman and a man, live in Victorian and Edwardian stock (and do so with a highly attenuated sense of our own good fortune).  
 
We had a simply excellent debate.  One thing is for sure: the government's New Homes Bonus will not equate to a "good homes bonus".  And we had a lot of laughs.  Much banter was bandied, but this did not detract from a very sophisticated debate about such fraught issues as floor-to-ceiling heights.  At one stage Paula Hirst was describing how she could flatten her hands against the ceiling in her living room "and when I put on my heels I head-butt the light bulb". Dr Evans, from the chair eyed her studiedly for a few seconds before slowly rejoindering "well, you are rather tall, Paula", which had us all roaring.  We didn't get onto Boris's brilliant "homes for hobbits" construct, nor indeed the "shameful shoeboxes" of RIBA but we weren't above coming up with our own sound bites.   "Cartel of crap" was one such nugget. 

Now then, if you don't count today, there are only 23 working days left until MIPIM. I say this just to scare the bejesus out of you all. Did it work?  
 
Preparations in UKR are feverishly underway.  We rocked around to Estates Gazette yesterday to discuss what will be the themes for MIPIM this year and, to be honest, it's rather difficult to assess.  Obviously the Olympics, the recession and the eurozone crisis present a very mixed bag for the UK property industry and it is difficult to gauge the emerging themes and the mood.