Midlands Property

"KPMG veteran Steve Hollis, the deputy chair of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP, said in his keynote speech at the Birmingham Office Agents Forum yesterday, that the coalition can only deliver its localism agenda if it destroys the stranglehold which Whitehall has had on every government's decentralisation strategies.

For me, that is the greatest hurdle facing Lord Heseltine, in the next phase of his No Stone Unturned review.

Almost all his proposals were accepted by David Cameron and George Osbourne, so now it's up to them to ensure that the massed ranks of civil servants - Sir Humphrey-types - deliver what their political masters demand.

For me, every LEP should already know the size of its spending 'pot', so they can proceed with their infrastructure projects, which will be the catalyst for the next phases of growth in our urban centres.

We are told it is June before Whitehall will inform Steve and his peers across England and Wales about the scale of their future resources, which in my opinion is too long given the time which has elapsed since the RDAs were abolished.

Last week, Heseltine told Birmingham Chamber's annual banquet that there should be a peasants' revolt to break Whitehall's power.

Not that I see myself as the new Wat Tyler, but he's right. We need a crusade by the business community, to demand that the Sir Humphreys end their opposition to change. We also need to do our bit to ensure the local communities themselves are up to the challenge.

"Our urban centres have stagnated for too long, under the impact of recession and austerity as well as over centralisation. It's vital that the LEPs are allowed to operate as planned. We have a window of opportunity and have only one shot to deliver the localism agenda, and if we get it wrong, I believe our city will be in big trouble."

Jan Thompson is Midlands chairman at Jones Lang LaSalle and outgoing chair of Birmingham Office Agents Forum

In one of the liveliest Budgets in recent memory, chancellor George Osborne was at times lost for words. With the outlook for the economy significantly downgraded, some are saying that this is a Budget of paradoxes. For example, Britain will avoid a triple-dip recession after the return to negative growth in Q4 of 2012, but the economy is only likely to grow by 0.6% this year - a big fall from the 1.1% previously forecast.

The West Midlands region was fleetingly mentioned as Osborne confirmed the government's backing to Lord Heseltine's call for a 'single pot' of money for local enterprise and the country's 39 LEP's to share and promised to implement the proposal.

The Help to Buy scheme is welcomed but will it truly revitalise the housing market? And the announcement regarding £3.5bn investment in infrastructure is positive, but which schemes are set to benefit and how quickly?

As people digest the finer details from this afternoon's speech, here is some initial industry reaction:

Stephen Hemming, director, planning & development at Lambert Smith Hampton in Birmingham, welcomes the chancellor's announcement of £3.5bn support for infrastructure projects, but adds: "It is unfortunate that the spending won't come in until 2015/16, although it is appreciated that the money comes as a result of savings elsewhere. The question is what will be delivered and where? Will we see the big, potentially game changing schemes getting delayed by challenges as with HS2 or will it be the smaller, but in some cases no less important, projects such as new roads and so on which have been put on the back burner finally being dusted off."  

Jan Thompson, Jones Lang LaSalle's Birmingham-based Midland chairman also welcomes the £3bn spending on infrastructure and acceptance of a single pot for local enterprise but states again the key questions on everyone's lips - how much will Whitehall release to allow the LEP's to proceed and when? I think we are all disappointed that the budget contained no news on how the government would allocate resources to regional LEPs, through the Heseltine Review.  These proposals will be a real game-changer for the West Midlands, and there are clearly internal battles going on in Whitehall as confirmed by Heseltine in terms of the size of the pot," says Thompson.

"Until this is decided, the LEPs for Greater Birmingham & Solihull, and for the Black Country remain uncertain about when they can begin to implement their ideas for growth and make them a reality.  And if you put this into context, we see that last month, of the 576 infrastructure projects highlighted by the government only seven have been completed. The country needs these schemes to be delivered and not log-jammed inside Whitehall.