Meet the women bringing the UK’s cities back to life

The women leading Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow councils tell Julia Cahill how they are committed to delivering change as local authorities face unprecedented challenges. Deborah Cadman, chief executive, Birmingham City Council There is always a moment in the children’s game of KerPlunk when the clatter of marbles down the plastic tube is postponed by a clever (or lucky) player. Deborah Cadman OBE, chief executive of Birmingham City Council, remembers it well. “The city is like a really complicated, vibrant game of KerPlunk,” she says. “Birmingham City Council is one of the players and we’re having to pull the stick out halfway at the moment. And we’re doing it carefully and thoughtfully, in a way which means that the marbles don’t fall through.” Speaking last month as her team prepared to outline some of the £300m of cuts the council will make this year and next, and the land and properties it will look to sell to raise £500m, Cadman says it is “really, really important” to be open about the situation. The Labour-run council effectively declared itself bankrupt last September, as it faces a £760m equal pay claim liability and a huge overspend on an IT system. Shortly afterwards, Westminster appointed commissioners to help run the council. In February, the government approved its request to increase council tax by up to 10% from April. Expected plans to cut youth services led to public protests and there have been calls for Cadman to resign. It has been a torrid time, with the news last October that the HS2 railway project would no longer run from Birmingham to Manchester bringing further disappointment. But Cadman insists the city is still very much open for business. “The council is one part of a very complex jigsaw, but that doesn’t mean the jigsaw isn’t working. Quite the reverse,” she says. Indeed, the latest Deloitte Regional Crane Survey described Birmingham as “a hive of activity, with construction at historically high levels, building on the success of [the Commonwealth Games in] 2022”. The council is certainly not rowing back on its ambitions for the city’s growth – and Cadman says developers and investors are still knocking on its door. “That’s gratifying,” she says, “because it wouldn’t have taken much for a certain perception to have taken hold about Birmingham.” The council has been working hard to maintain that confidence. It is still responsible for planning applications, for working in partnership with the combined authority – where Cadman was previously chief executive – and with other major players to ensure the context and the environment for development and regeneration is as robust as it ever was. Fit for purpose Cuts will be made throughout the entire organisation, but one positive that Cadman is gleaning from the situation is the opportunity to make the council “fit for purpose” in the 21st century. “We have to take it as an opportunity to reset and recalibrate,” she says. If anything, Cadman says the council’s central Birmingham framework to 2040 has grown in ambition on the back of the recent consultation on the draft document, which closed last August. She hints at “a number of really exciting developments” and says an update on this for the property sector is expected at the UKREiiF conference in May. She is excited about the progress at Birmingham Innovation Quarter, which was launched last year as a joint venture with Bruntwood SciTech and Aston University. “That is really about capturing the global interest,” she says. There will be no “arbitrary fire sale” of council assets, she insists. “I get cross when people suggest that. We have a very clear strategy about disposal and what we have had to do is accelerate that. I would say it has made us think differently. It has made us think creatively and more strategically than we would have done previously.” Aside from meeting its best value and fiduciary duties, Cadman says these sales must be done in a way that does not compromise the council’s ambitions for the city’s future development. Within the property and investment community, she points to a shift towards being more collaborative, more thoughtful, which seems to have been accelerated by the current crisis. “It’s important to them that they help and support us during this difficult time, because ultimately, we’ll get to the place where we all want to get to,” she says. “We all want the same thing. And the response has been phenomenal.” That means long-term commitment. “Rather than seeing massive investments as simply ‘won and done’, investors increasingly want to have a real stake, not just in that development, but in the place,” Cadman says. “That also comes from us being a bit more confident about the city and what we expect from people who want to come and invest here. It works both ways.” Taking on the role of chief executive of Europe’s largest local authority in June 2021 – with one of the most diverse communities and with significant poverty – was always going to be challenging, but Cadman acknowledges that things have been even tougher than she had expected. Her gratitude to those who have supported both her and the organisation shines through. “I am only ever as good as the people who work for the organisation. So it has been important to both retain and attract people who aren’t afraid of a challenge, but also want to come and make a difference and contribute to what will be one of the largest transformation programmes local government has ever seen,” she says. In these complicated and challenging times, a good leader must be brave enough to stick their head above the parapet and make those difficult decisions, she adds. Drawing on data and intelligence is crucial, and she is doing so more than ever before to support the politicians and members to make the right calls. Meanwhile, residents inevitably “feel that there is a lot going on that they don’t know about”. Therefore, how the council communicates and engages with residents – and businesses – is something she is determined to get right. KerPlunk fans will recall that once a player has committed to a particular stick by touching it, they must remove it and suffer the consequences. Fortunately for Birmingham, Cadman is playing by different rules. “Once we have our own budget balanced and sustainable, we will then push that stick back in,” she promises. The marbles may yet stay put. Nuala Gallagher, corporate director of city development, Liverpool City Council Nuala Gallagher says she was “under no illusion that it was going to be tough” coming into Liverpool City Council after “probably the worst time” it has had. She was recruited as corporate director of city development from Limerick City and County Council almost a year ago, a coup for the council during a major reorganisation forced on it by a dramatic sequence of events. The 2019 police investigation into building and development contracts had prompted a best value inspection of Liverpool City Council led by government-appointed commissioner Max Caller. His damning 2021 report led Westminster to parachute in a team of commissioners with oversight of the regeneration, highways and property management departments, with finance subsequently added. Last summer, the Liverpool Echo reported that police had handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service. The impact of all of this on regeneration in Liverpool cannot be understated. As the interim report by the Liverpool Strategic Futures Advisory Panel, published last November, put it: “The fall in investor activity prompted by the results of the 2021 best value inspection had a chilling effect on development, with a handful of notable exceptions.” But Gallagher, who brings more than two decades of experience in development and placemaking – including as a director at both Bristol and Belfast city councils and head of regeneration at the London Borough of Newham – says the opportunity to be part of the change was too good to pass up. “For me, that was a really exciting proposition,” she says. She knew the city well through a family member and “absolutely loved it”. “I could see the opportunity in the city, so that for me was the driver.” Within her team, “people had been burnt” and externally there was a need to reconnect with the property sector, she says. “We’ve done a lot of work since I’ve come in, in terms of meeting with people and hearing their frustrations and some of the issues and challenges that people have had. “We are being upfront and open with people about where we are on the journey. We want to work with people, we want to have an open-door approach, and get good partners back and invested in the city.” Key to that is a strong focus on place-led regeneration, which she says “maybe wasn’t there for a number of years because of how things were managed”. Creating a showcase Gallagher moved quickly to commission a place-based development and investment strategy to showcase current and future opportunities to developers, investors, key stakeholders and funding partners. The aim is to show an ambitious vision of how the city will develop and grow. More on this is expected imminently and is likely to offer insight into how the council hopes to see the long-awaited regeneration of areas such as the Fabric District, Upper Central and St George’s Gateway move forward. Crucially, Gallagher’s remit is broader than it would have been under the previous structure. It covers regeneration, planning, property, culture, companies and commercial, and economic strategy, skills and sustainability. “It’s how we start to have an inclusive growth agenda to maximise the development potential for residents in the city as well as business and engagement with business,” Gallagher explains. Six directors will report into her, with five so far in post: Sophie Bevan from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as director of development and major projects; Kate Bull from the London Borough of Hounslow as director of economic strategy, skills and sustainability; Claire McColgan CBE remains director of culture; Samantha Campbell has been promoted from chief planning officer to director of planning and building control; and Ben Heywood is the most recent to join, from LCRCA, as director of companies and commercial, to provide leadership and advice on the council’s commercial strategy and operations. The sixth will be David Lord, who joins next month from Manchester City Council as director of property. Below this layer, there has been recruitment and restructuring to get the team right, although property has been slower to recruit into owing to the sector’s competitive salaries. Shared vision “I think it’s the right mix of services in terms of how we want to do city development,” Gallagher says. Having culture in there is important, she says, because of its impact on engagement; and having property sitting alongside regeneration and planning is crucial to making the right decisions about the council’s estate and how it transacts. “The council has gone from a position previously where it was disposing of sites more broadly and perhaps in isolation. We are taking a different approach. We want to look at what a comprehensive place-based approach is,” she explains. That means doing “some proper site assembly” with its land holdings and then working with partners with adjacent holdings to make sure it pushes good schemes forward for the city. “We can leverage that in whichever way we want – in a development agreement or other ways – to get good partners to come in and work with us, who share our values and ambition for the city, and to drive up quality as well,” Gallagher says. Long-term council involvement alongside private sector partners is her preferred approach. “We’re so lucky – the bones of the city are incredible. We have more listed buildings than any other city outside of London. So we have a huge advantage in terms of heritage, and we want to build on that and actually get the quality in for the future,” she says. To this end, the council has gone to market for a multidisciplinary team to prepare a strategy and masterplan that will guide Liverpool’s entire waterfront development for the next 10 to 15 years, from Festival Gardens up to Everton’s new home at Bramley-Moore Dock. The council will work closely with landowners on the project, including Peel L&P, the developer of the 150-acre Liverpool Waters regeneration. “We didn’t have a strategy for the waterfront, and this is one of the most iconic waterfronts in the world and it’s a gift to us,” she says. “We want to maximise the value of that.” A path to success The council’s brief says the strategy “should reimagine the city’s iconic waterfront, building upon its fundamental intrinsic value”. The aim is to ensure that future development creates “successful neighbourhoods, helping local communities and the wider city thrive”. It must also address the impact of climate change. The appointment is expected shortly, with the work due to complete by June 2025. The shift in emphasis can also be seen in the appointment last November of a team of placemaking experts to prepare a development brief for the 28-acre Festival Gardens site. Once complete, the council will select a partner for this long-awaited regeneration – more than three years after its previous agreement with developer Ion expired. Meanwhile, work is under way by a multidisciplinary team to prepare 7.6 acres of waterfront land at King’s Dock for investment. Gallagher says it is vital that the council gets these sites moving and brings partners on board. She is also determined to get the message across to government and to potential partners that Liverpool has “the land, scale and opportunity for development within the city centre” that most cities do not. “The amount of land we have, within what is a compact city, means there is excellent opportunity in terms of housing delivery. We need to make sure that government and partners are aware of that so we can accelerate as much development as possible,” she says. With the commissioners in place until summer and the recent report by the Futures panel highlighting regeneration as one of three top priorities for Liverpool’s success, Gallagher says “there’s a line into government”. “The city of Liverpool is high up on the priority list – with DLUHC, with Homes England, with everyone,” she says. But to match that, she is acutely aware of the need for the council “to demonstrate credibility”. Following elections last May, Gallagher says things are feeling “settled and stable” – and she believes the commissioners can see and appreciate that. “We’re not in ‘excellent’ mode yet, but we’re progressing towards it.” More progress is also expected soon on further development at the Knowledge Quarter, the centre piece of the city region’s newly created life sciences investment zone. The zone was initially awarded £80m of government funding last year, and this is tipped to double. Some £320m of direct private sector match funding has already been identified. It’s the kind of boost Liverpool needs.  Meanwhile, Gallagher plans to turn a recent developer forum into a quarterly event as part of a drive to rebuild relationships and forge new ones. She hopes to put to rest any perceptions that there is a “particular route” into the council. “We’re open, just like in other cities. We want people to get in touch directly,” she says.  Susan Aitken, leader, Glasgow City Council After a decade of vacancy, Bruntwood SciTech will reopen Glasgow’s Met Tower next year as a business scaler for the technology and digital sector in the heart of the city centre. For Susan Aitken, leader of Glasgow City Council, the project exemplifies what the city is driving to achieve. “We are trying to deliver as much mutual benefit for everyone as possible,” she says. “There’s real potential for a much more diverse usage in our inner-city centre, of having innovation right in the heart of Glasgow city centre alongside more traditional uses.” The Category B listed former City of Glasgow College sits within the Glasgow City Innovation District and next to the University of Strathclyde, which is a partner in the innovation district along with the city council. Bruntwood SciTech is ploughing £60m into the revamp of the existing 14-storey tower and development of a new 10-storey tower, with the two interconnected via a new plaza. Between them, they will offer more than 200,000 sq ft of serviced and leased office space. Aitken, who has led the council since the Scottish National Party took control in 2017, says Glasgow’s business growth after the global financial crisis was strong, but “didn’t move the dial” on the inequality issues facing the city. Having retained the leadership after the 2022 election, when the SNP lost two seats and reached a “working agreement” with the Greens, she is determined to keep pushing for that shift. Changing lives West of the Met Tower is another innovation district – this time in partnership with the University of Glasgow. The Glasgow Riverside Innovation District is largely centred in Govan, on the south side of the River Clyde, where Aitken says “there is embedded poverty and inequalities, and has been for a long time”.  But she is optimistic that the innovation district will help change the lives of those living here. “There is real partnership developing between the community, community representatives and the university to deliver genuine social, as well as economic, transformation,” she says. That means economic transformation for the community as well as delivering on the ambitions the university has for more and better commercialisation and spin-outs. In November, the university and property developer Kadans Science Partner announced plans to build a health hub in Govan to provide office space, labs and co-working areas. Momentum continues to build elsewhere too, spurred on by the Glasgow Innovation Action Plan agreed last year between government agency Innovate UK, Scottish Enterprise and the Glasgow City Region. The recently announced £2.5m private and public sector investment into a 250-desk state-of-the-art facility named thebeyond at SkyPark, Finnieston, is another example of how the city is powering ahead through partnerships. The UK government has committed £257,000 of grant funding to the project with the council and Glasgow-based business accelerator Smart Things Accelerator Centre, led by co-founder and chief executive Paul Wilson. Their aim is to transform Glasgow into Europe’s largest smart things and IoT innovation hub, turning entrepreneurs into competitors of companies internationally. The building at SkyPark will be the centrepiece and the council and the city itself will be used as a test bed for home-grown technologies. Aitken says the council is increasingly having conversations with “folks like Paul, who want to drive innovation with a civic purpose”. “They want to be part of the place they’re in, they want to connect with the city, to build those partnerships and collaborations. That’s exciting. And what Paul has done in terms of bringing investment into his business and bringing in the expertise and knowledge from the major corporate players he has supporting his work is very exciting as well,” she says. Indeed, Volvo Cars chief executive and STAC advisory member Jim Rowan is a vocal supporter of the initiative, which also has the support of executives from the likes of Dyson, Plexus, Meta, Blackberry and Motorola. “Businesses need suitable, appropriate real estate – whether that’s tech space or lab space for life sciences,” Aitken says. “In the past, the city council’s response would have been to find that space and provide that space. Now, those early interventions by the city have had an impact to the extent that we now have an innovation ecosystem. So we can partner with those working within it to create physical spaces that respond to the needs of both existing and future businesses. “We are growing that ability for an innovation-led economy to continue to grow, to thrive, to expand in the city, and for individual businesses within that economy to do that,” Aitken says. Another big contributor to that is the promise of a £160m Glasgow City Region investment zone, jointly funded by the UK and Scottish governments. Maximising benefits For Aitken, these are exciting – and challenging – times. Coming back to her central theme of delivering mutual benefit, she is looking to real estate to help address the city’s “increasingly urgent need for all housing tenure types”. The 400 or so city office buildings recently identified by Ryden as not fit for the modern office market could provide some answers to that shortage of supply, she suggests. Then there is the small matter of the ongoing work to deliver an investable proposition for Glasgow’s heat and energy transition. “Our aim within the next 18 months is for Glasgow to be in the position of announcing our own version of the Bristol City Leap,” Aitken says, a reference to Bristol City Council’s partnership with Ameresco, and Vattenfall Heat UK, that will deliver nearly £500m of investment over the next five years in Bristol’s clean energy system. With a UK general election looming, Aitken says she is ready to work with whatever government comes in to maximise the benefits for Glasgow. As a political activist, Aitken admits she has many criticisms of what the current UK government has done, not least its handling of asylum seekers and the knock-on effects for homelessness and housing supply. “On the other side, we have good working relationships with the UK government – around the innovation accelerator, for example. That has been a beneficial, positive and genuinely good working experience for my officials. There are nearly always benefits to be leveraged. You find folk who are pragmatic and who are up for doing something and getting something done.” That approach seems to be part of Glasgow’s winning formula. Last year’s Resonance report, which sets out to find the world’s best cities for locals, visitors and businesses, placed Glasgow at 61 (up from 93 in 2022), and second only to London in the UK. For Aitken, that recognition hinges not only on Glasgow’s strengths in education and culture, but its commitment to keep striving for inclusive growth.