Is empowering nimbys really the best way to level up?

EDITOR’S COMMENT Former Homes England boss Nick Walkley’s tweet: “Can’t wait to vote on the new kitchen and bedroom at No.43” following the announcement of mini-referendums on planning in the Queen’s Speech this week sums up the ridiculousness of vast swathes of the real estate-related proposals announced. Instead of a speech that actually does enable the UK to level up, build back better or any of the other buzzwords that our politicians like to throw around, the planning proposals announced by HM government will do anything but. Giving locals the opportunity to vote on what goes on in their street might sound wonderfully collaborative and utopian but, in reality, all this will do is slow an already slow planning system.  It will simply give the nimbys even bigger voices. Or start mini street wars across the country’s most curtain-twitchy of neighbourhoods. It will no doubt make for a great Channel 4 documentary, but I can’t see how that is going to level up, accelerate housebuilding or deliver greener, cleaner spaces for residents. We have already talked about the foolishness of plans to force landlords of empty retail properties to let them out via rental auctions. Just how this will create “the high streets that people want”, I don’t know. Unless the high streets that people want are full of vaping stores and betting shops. How about government lends a little support to landlords – many of which are professionals and actually want to create great spaces for businesses to blossom – to enable them to offer space at affordable prices. The more you slam costs, taxes and a “you’re just evil” descriptor on property owners, the less likely they are not just to want to help build back better and level up, but to be able to do either. I have lost count of the times I have written here about government’s clear misunderstanding of the role of the real estate sector in society and the UK economy. As Allsop’s Scott Tyler said: “There is no path to levelling up that doesn’t run through real estate.” Tyler is spot on. There is barely a government agenda out there that does not require the assistance of the real estate sector. Why is it not seeing this? Why are we still getting Queen’s Speeches that push the property sector away? It does, largely, want to lean in. Now is the time to work with the sector, not against it. Yes, there are real estate businesses out there that exist purely to make money and couldn’t really give a flip about purpose, the planet or levelling up. But there are a lot that do and it is unfair to tar all of them with the same brush. Just imagine if we tarred all our politicians with the same brush? Not everything is the fault of a developer. They are not responsible for every bad thing that happens. They can, however, be responsible for good things. If allowed. If given the opportunity. If listened to. Putting more power in the hands of our under-resourced and under-funded local authorities is not the solution to driving growth. That is not a criticism of local authorities; they are not set up to succeed. If government really wants to seize the “enormous” prize that levelling up offers, it has to invest in that. Invest in local authorities, enable them to upskill, let’s help them get their local plans in place, to actually deliver on the National Planning Policy Framework put in place a decade ago. Let’s stop shifting goalposts on planning and infrastructure levies and section 106s and whatever other tax might feel like a solution and bring the public and private sectors together. And if prime minster Boris Johnson really does want to “get on with providing the leadership needed in challenging times”, then I’d suggest that forging better relationships with the very best of real estate’s businesses should be top of his to-do list.   To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews