Andy Street fights for post-pandemic regeneration

“I may well get a red card from my own party,” says Andy Street, as he races to defend planning and the West Midlands’ own strategies for development. While prime minister Boris Johnson and housing secretary Robert Jenrick tear up planning, the mayor says he is sceptical. “The current planning system is not faultless, but it has done two things very well and we must protect them,” he says. “It has enabled very big regeneration schemes to happen and then also this very difficult call about the green belt.” Street’s defence of the system echoes a similar argument at the start of this year. In January, EG sat down with Andy Street at Birmingham’s Mailbox. At the time, he pointed to planning as an integral part of the support from the public sector to enable development and investment. Months later, he reiterates those claims: “If you boil it all down, we’ve had a dynamic development industry over the past decade, working with the current rules,” says Street. “So, ‘be very careful about what we jettison’ would be my advice.” In the time between EG’s original interview and his latest comments – speaking virtually on a panel for MIPIM – the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the world into lockdown and the economy into recession. Amid the early turmoil, England’s mayoral elections were postponed from May this year to May 2021. Now, the West Midlands mayor says the region’s recovery will rely on the public sector, and he isn’t afraid to break the party line and go it alone. Public purse strings Back in January, government investment in infrastructure, specifically HS2, was top of Street’s agenda. At the height of the pandemic the PM finally gave the nod to proceed with the £106bn rail project. “Let’s be honest, that is a vast sum of cash investing in jobs and innovation in the West Midlands,” he enthuses, but there is still more to be done. “Then you ask: what are the changes to the property market that we are going to need to respond to as well?” Street says that the West Midlands has a competitive advantage over other areas: “There are some very big publicly funded capital projects.” Take, for example, the £1bn ploughed into the Commonwealth Games. Last month, Birmingham 2022 said it had scrapped the £500m athletes’ village, with construction delays forcing organisers to opt for accommodation at three university campuses. However, the development will still receive backing from the public purse. “The regeneration of Perry Barr will continue; we will go straight to the ultimate use of housing,” says the mayor. “The £165m in government money that was on the table for it is still there. We had to fight to keep that, and that housing will still come about. I still see it as a huge catalyst for the regeneration.” Rethinking residential Many long-awaited schemes could face even greater delays, with a need for revised plans post-pandemic. The mayor points to Coventry City South, also backed with £95m in devolved funds, where the city has been forced back to the drawing board. “That scheme was predominantly retail-led. It has been completely rethought during the pandemic, and it will move to housing and leisure,” says Street. “I’m much more confident that this scheme will now go ahead successfully, rather than a scheme that was designed in not just a pre-Covid world but a pre-retail-collapse world.” The West Midlands Combined Authority is on track to hit its housing target of 215,000 by 2031 and has since shifted its focus to affordability. In February, the WMCA launched its own tenure of so-called “genuinely affordable” housing, capping monthly payments at no more than 35% of the average earnings of the lowest-quartile earners. The tenure will be a requirement for 20% of housing on any scheme that receives grant funding, and it applies to rents and mortgage payments. “Property costs go up and the government’s affordable definition went up, and people were not able to afford it,” says Street. “That was wrong and we’ve tried to change that.” Now, with that social criteria in place, he says the question will be over how the industry can ensure homes are sustainable and include outdoor green spaces. “We will be looking to the private sector, frankly, to think about innovation here.” Battles with Whitehall That doesn’t mean he is backing down from his demands from Whitehall. While Andy Street is happy to argue on planning and create his own housing tenures, he is still lobbying for greater support for initiatives such as modern methods of construction. “It’s about how public land is disposed of, the skills that are there and investment in at-scale production,” says Street, adding that the region intends to build on its manufacturing heritage. Unemployment is already hurting the region, with claims up to the levels of 1992, says Street, and he is looking to the government for solutions. Just earlier in the day, Street spoke to housing secretary Robert Jenrick on the much-lauded central government expansion to the regions. “There’s no question about it – since the Brexit referendum there has been a huge increase in civil service in London, and that’s wrong,” he says. Larger cities such as Birmingham have done “reasonably”, but smaller second-tier towns are suffering. “This whole [move] out of London effect, post-pandemic, gives the regional cities and towns a real opportunity.” And, if that fails, the mayor won’t be shy about fighting for it. To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette Photo: James McCauley/Shutterstock