Creating value for communities

COMMENT At Landsec we believe that the role of a modern landlord is to create value for its customers, its stakeholders and for the communities where it invests. We have recently developed and launched our new community charter, which we see as a critical business tool to help us deliver on that role. The charter explicitly sets out the standards for how we will engage with our communities, both as a developer and a landlord – and invites our communities and stakeholders to hold us to account through these standards. Community engagement has long been an issue for our industry. For many people, it is the only time in their lives that they interact directly with a developer, but all too often it is an underwhelming experience. Tick-box approaches to consultations, promises made but not delivered – all these behaviours drive distrust in our industry. Several of our peers have been trying to shift that perception through their actions in this area – U+I (which we recently acquired) and Grosvenor are two good examples and there are of course more. But to shift the perception of an industry, we all need to play our part – and Landsec’s community charter is part of our contribution to this. No lip service One of the reasons high standards of community engagement have not been adopted wholesale by our industry is a lingering sense held in some quarters that community consultation can be a barrier to commercial success. That all you will ever encounter is opposition, so get it done in as credible a way as you need to to secure your consent. In this context, good consultation and engagement is something done by those who can afford to be worthy, not those under pressure to make a return. And while it is true that our approach to consultation is informed by our purpose – sustainable places, connecting communities, realising potential – I want to also set out three reasons quality community engagement is business-critical to our sector. First, it makes good commercial sense – working with communities to understand what they want is good for business. If we understand what local people want, we are better able to build it. And if people are invested in shaping a local area, they are more likely to visit it and spend money in it. It makes good political sense too – the newer generation of city and council leaders have high expectations, both of what we deliver as an industry and how we behave as business. The younger council leaders in particular – without naming names – are much closer to their local communities than many of their predecessors and draw their power base directly from them as much as their local political party. These councillors will not look kindly on any developer paying lip service to engaging their residents. Being able to demonstrate that you have meaningfully involved and secured buy-in from elements of their local community also helps to de-risk those councillors from making positive decisions on potentially controversial developments. Common ground Finally, if you do it right, you will have a completely different conversation around development – yes, people tend to oppose developments when they are presented without any meaningful attempts at engagement. But take the time to understand what they care about, and you may well find some common ground between what they want and what you can deliver. And if you take the time to engage groups of people who are not usually included in development consultations – for example, young people – your perspective on the potential impact of development might well be completely altered. High-quality community engagement isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s a commercial imperative for our industry to do it better and more consistently across the country. Mark Allan is chief executive at Landsec Photo from Landsec