The government is proposing an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill that will remove the requirement for housing projects in protected areas to be ‘nutrient neutral’ – in other words, the development cannot increase the amount of nitrogen or phosphorous in rivers.

• TAKE A DEEP DIVE: How river pollution is putting development plans in purgatory across the North and North Wales

Water companies are the largest source of phosphorous pollution, according to the government – which also states that agricultural practices are to blame for the pollution status of 40% of the country’s waters. The Home Builders Federation has argued that the built environment contributes less than 5% of pollution to rivers.

To combat pollution without stymying development, the government has increased funding for Natural England’s Nutrient Mitigation Scheme by £140m. Now, with a £280m investment, Natural England will create bespoke plans to address pollution issues in specific impacted areas.

Natural England will also increase the inspections it conducts on farms, support farmers in employing innovations to avoid nutrient runoffs, and double down on requirements for sustainable drainage solutions in housing developments.

According to the government’s announcement, homebuilders will also be consulted regarding the best ways to ensure developers “make an appropriate and fair contribution” to nutrient neutrality efforts.

The government also reiterated its push to have water companies invest in their infrastructure ahead of 2030.

The current nutrient neutrality rules are leftover from when the UK was part of the EU. They have impacted housing projects within the borders of 62 local authorities, including Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council.

When the rule was issued last year, it equated to a building ban impacting 2,500 homes in Cumbria.

That figure came from the Home Builders Federation, which welcomed the government’s announcement.

“Today’s very welcome announcement has the potential to unlock housing delivery across the country, from Cornwall to the Tees Valley, where housebuilding has been blocked despite wide acknowledgement that occupants of new homes are responsible for only a tiny fraction of the wastewater finding its ways into rivers and streams,” said HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley.

“The industry is eager to play its part in delivering mitigation and protecting our waterways,” he continued. “We look forward to engaging with government on the right way to do so, now that ministers are acting upon the arguments that builders both large and small have been making for so long.”

Nicky Gordon, chief executive of Genesis Homes, described the nutrient neutrality issue as “a major blockade to much-needed housing development across the country”.

He continued: “It has taken a ridiculous amount of time to sort something even though the housebuilding industry has long informed central government right through to local authorities of its wrongful singling out of homebuilders when the contribution of the industry to river pollution is almost zero.

“We now hold our breath for the finer details of the proposed changes to nutrient neutrality but we’re hopeful that some real progress is made so the 100,000 new homes currently on hold across the UK – including around 2,500 in Cumbria – because of this issue can finally start.”

Secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities Michael Gove said: “The way EU rules have been applied has held us back.

“These changes will provide a multi-billion-pound boost for the UK economy and see us build more than 100,000 new homes,” Gove continued.

“Protecting the environment is paramount which is why the measures we’re announcing today will allow us to go further to protect and restore our precious waterways whilst still building the much-needed homes this country needs,” he said.

The post Govt to relax nutrient neutrality rules in England appeared first on Place North West.

THIS WEEK

• Unblocking the system: the government’s plans to improve capacity in the planning system win cautious praise
• Elevator pitch: your weekly rundown of who and what is going up, and who is heading the other way

PLANNING FOR TROUBLE

This week’s planning tweaks could be significant

Small but welcome changes could improve capacity in the planning system. But keep your fingers crossed.

Levelling up, housing, and communities secretary Michael Gove chose this week to make a series of announcements about property and economic growth. Some of them were risible – the idea that there are thousands of former chip shops ready, waiting, and perfect for residential conversion is for the birds. As Knight Frank quickly pointed out, even if the latest tweak to permitted development rights worked to its fullest, it can’t deliver more than a few hundred new homes when hundreds of thousands are what’s needed.

This way, please

So let’s forget the cold vegetables and turn to the red meat. This was about capacity in a planning system widely believed to be an overloaded, understaffed, public service that has reached, or exceeded, its ability to cope. On Tuesday, three documents appeared. The first was a response to a consultation on increasing planning fees, thus helping to pay for more planners. The second was on a second round of funding to help councils afford to deal with the largest nationally significant planning applications (“nationally significant” is a broader category than you might think). The third was a consultation on how big projects are assessed and approved. You have until September to respond.

Follow the money

The gist is: planning application fees go up by 35% for major applications and by 25% for householders. This still doesn’t cover the cost of handling an application.

Meanwhile, local authority resources have been falling steadily since 2015/2016, according to impartial House of Commons Library data. Council expenditure on planning fell by an average of 43% from 2009/2010 to 2020/2021, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute, but it was worse in the North.

The North East saw funding drop by 62%, Yorkshire by 49%, and the North West by 46%. So can we assume councils will still struggle to make up the difference? The government concludes “it is expected that the performance of local planning authorities will improve”.

Special pot

Maybe the gap can be plugged with grants from the second round of the funding to support nationally significant projects with their biodiversity and net zero carbon analysis? Councils are invited to apply to the Innovation and Capacity Fund for up to £100,000 each, or £350,000 if transport infrastructure is involved.

Fees rethink

Proposals to streamline the way nationally significant infrastructure applications are handled are mostly tinkering. Here, too, the exception is fee changes. Today, the Planning Inspectorate can only recover about 70% of its costs through fees. Changes involve allowing the inspectorate to charge closer to cost for pre-application advice and recalibrating the fees to match the work involved rather than (madly) the size of the local authority in whose area the scheme sits.

It’s a people problem

Will this make much difference? Not if it doesn’t tackle recruitment, says Public Practice, a social enterprise that helps local councils find the placemaking specialists they need but struggle to recruit. Almost 80% of local councils say they can’t get the staff these days.

“Through the wide amount of evidence-based research and the daily conversations we have with officers, we know there is a recruitment and capacity crisis affecting planning and placemaking departments across England,” says chief executive Pooja Agrawal.

The government’s capacity-growing proposals will help to an extent: it has put up £1.6m to fund a council-run scheme, Pathways to Planning, to recruit 150 graduates for local authority planning departments by 2025. The project launches in the autumn.

Let’s take a look

For a taste of early reactions to Tuesday’s announcements, take a trip to St Helens. The borough has a recently adopted and strongly pro-growth local plan involving Green Belt release and includes Marcol iSec’s 3m sq ft Strategic Rail Freight Interchange on a 300-acre site next to Junction 22 of the M6 (it is a nationally significant infrastructure project).

Can’t get the staff

St Helens head of planning, Kieran Birch, says recruitment is an issue, particularly for some specialisms like design and masterplanning. “We recently advertised a senior officer post and didn’t get any applicants we wanted to interview,” he tells Subplot. The temporary solution is to employ contractors, but that isn’t ideal. “We have some big sites and we want our own staff on them getting experience, upskilling – not a contractor,” he says.

But £££

The increase in planning fees could be good for St Helens, judging by the council’s analysis of potential income if the new fees had been chargeable over the past five years. “If it’s ring-fenced, and we use it correctly, we should be able to recruit permanently, and we will absolutely use the graduate Pathways to Planning scheme -fee income could fund permanent posts from that,” says Birch.

The £100,000 (or £350,000) grant for nationally significant schemes is interesting – but depends on how flexible it is. “It hinges on what we can use the money for,” says Birch.

The overall conclusion from St Helens is that the latest package is helpful – but in the end more money is the only answer. “Increasing fees helps now, the graduate scheme helps – these will both make a difference,” says Birch. “I think we’ve got a good record on performance, but I expect developers would be happy to pay higher fees if they get permission fast.”

What comes next? Some of the smartest names in planning have been discussing this with Place North. Watch a video of the roundtable discussion sponsored by Lexington.

­ELEVATOR PITCH

Going up, or going down? This week’s movers

This week, some old favourites are wheeled out for a little ride. The doors are opening for Green Belt development and coastal communities regeneration. Will they go up or down?

Good brownfield, bad Green Belt

Here we go again. Green Belt versus brownfield development is back in the headlines. Both major parties gave it an outing in recent days.

In a speech, housing secretary Michael Gove spoke of his plans for growth in 20 urban locations. “That is why we will enable brownfield development rather than Green Belt erosion, sustainable growth rather than suburban sprawl,” he said.

His Labour opposite number, Lisa Nandy, tried a variation on the theme by dividing Green Belt up into good and bad. She said she wanted “poor-quality” Green Belt land handed to new mayoral development corporations.

The Sunday Telegraph reported her saying Labour would “declassify the poor-quality parts, which currently aren’t very lucrative for developers but provide good sites for new housing.” This begs the question, why would housing be good on sites other developers think are unsuitable given every site needs pretty much the same things – power, access, drainage? Please feel free to add your thoughts below the line.

Whether you call it brownfield or bad Green Belt, the big issue neither mention is the problem of servicing the land – particularly providing electricity.

“We have several sites in the North West which benefit from planning consent and are development-ready,” says Jayne Hennessy, of Peel Natural Resources and Energy, part of Peel L&P.

“However, grid constraints and new points of connection remain a major issue in the delivery of these projects,” Hennessy continues. “Sites are being stalled due to distribution network operator’s requirements for network reinforcement costs to be borne by the developer, which typically run into the millions of pounds and can take up to five years, delaying the economic benefits of these sites being brought forward.”

Seaside town revival

Here we go again, again. This time it’s the seaside towns of the Lancashire, Cumbria, and Yorkshire and Durham/Northumberland coast and their quest for a viable future. Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves appeared yesterday in a Sun splash, sitting in a café in Scarborough vowing to revive Britain’s coastal towns by changing business rates, cracking down on second homes, and boosting tourism. Great news, but maybe Reeves would like to take a quick glance at an analysis of lessons from the existing government’s £229m Coastal Communities Fund, published a few weeks ago. It is illuminating. Since 2012, the fund has backed 178 projects in England, the last £50m tranche in 2018 awarding £1.7m to Blackpool, £1m to Copeland, £1.3m to the County Durham Coast, £3.6m to Hoylake, and £2.5m to Whitehaven, among others.

The analysis is not happy reading: they treated every project – big or small – the same, Whitehall interfered too much, they didn’t think enough about how many people would benefit or how deprived an area was, they preferred to support new projects than existing ones which might limit impact, they didn’t define outcomes well or check money was being well spent, and the jobs and tourism figures are a bit iffy.

Thus: total extra tourism spend was estimated at £227m, which is spookily close to total funding, and on jobs – “projects not reporting any actual indirect job creation accounted for a further 5,730 forecast jobs” – which casts doubt on the forecasts, to say the least. The report suggests, charitably, that some of those jobs may have existed somehow but “lack of systematic evaluation” makes it hard to judge what really happened and the report concludes that if anyone does this again they “should consider ways to better support and assist projects, particularly small projects, to estimate their actual economic impact.”

The post The Subplot | Planning policy special appeared first on Place North West.

Backed by £80m of government funding, the Liverpool City Region investment zone could leverage £320m of private sector investment over the next five years and “make Liverpool a pharmaceutical production superpower”, according to Whitehall. 

An initial £10m investment will be made by US pharmaceutical manufacturer TriRx, which will go towards immunotherapy research at its Speke biotech facility. 

The investment zone will benefit from a range of interventions that could include skills, infrastructure, and tax reliefs, depending on local circumstances, according to a statement published by the Department for Levelling Up, Homes, and Communities. 

The statement added that the government would work with the Liverpool City Region and the University of Liverpool to co-develop the plans for the life sciences investment zone, including agreeing priority development sites and specific interventions to drive cluster growth. 

“Investment Zones will drive growth across the UK. For Liverpool that means over £300m of private investment and 4,000 new, well-paid jobs – all building on the city’s world-leading reputation in medical science,” said levelling up minister Lee Rowley. 

“The health and life sciences sector already contributes an estimated £290m to the Liverpool City Region’s economy every year. Building on this strength, the Liverpool City Region’s Investment Zone includes the University of Liverpool and is part of the government’s vision to drive growth in the sectors of the future including advanced manufacturing, green industries, digital and technology.” 

One of the pharmaceutical companies based in Speke is AstraZeneca. The company employs 400 people who work on manufacturing an intranasal influenza vaccine. 

Mark Proctor, general manager for AstraZeneca’s Liverpool vaccine research and development in Speke, said: “AstraZeneca welcomes the establishment of the Liverpool City Region Investment Zone focussed on life sciences, which has the potential to attract more businesses to the region’s already thriving medicine development and manufacturing cluster. 

“The site has the potential to expand into new technology platforms for vaccines and we look forward to working with the Liverpool City Region to identify opportunities to develop these capabilities in the coming years.” 

Liverpool City Region’s investment zone follows the recent announcement of South Yorkshire’s advanced manufacturing zone, which has backing from Boeing. 

Six more investment zones are to be announced in England. 

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: “Our area is fortunate to play home to world-leading clusters in life science research and innovation, which support thousands of secure, well-paid jobs and training opportunities for local people. I am incredibly proud of what our region has achieved in the sector – but this is just a down payment on my future ambitions. I want us to go even further and establish our region at the forefront of UK science and innovation.

“With a potential £310m worth of investment and thousands of local jobs on offer, it is clear that this is an opportunity worth exploring. Yet, throughout this process, I have been clear that any investment in our area must go much further than purely financial incentives. I want to use our status as a force for good, to connect our residents up to secure, well-paid jobs and training opportunities, and attract transformational investment into our area.

“To play our part in making that happen, we will be investing 5% of GVA in R&D over the next few years – that is nearly double national targets. Becoming an innovation superpower  might sound like a lofty ambition – but I believe that if anywhere has the potential to achieve it, then it’s the Liverpool City Region.”

Learn more about the development scene in Liverpool City Region. Book your Liverpool City Region Development Update ticket.

The post Liverpool City Region confirmed as £320m investment zone appeared first on Place North West.

Gove unveiled on Monday the government’s strategy for completing its manifesto pledge of delivering 1m homes by the end of this Parliament. The plan includes a series of actions directly aimed at unlocking homes in Leeds, Cambridge, and London.

Gove also put the spotlight on Barrow-in-Furness.

“We want Barrow to be a new powerhouse for the North – extending beyond its current boundaries with thousands of new homes and space for new businesses to benefit from the scientific and technical expertise already clustered there,” Gove said, adding that the cabinet secretary would be in Barrow-in-Furness later this week to meet with local leaders to plot a strategy for the community.

Alongside those area-specific plans, Gove’s speech included a variety of national reforms. These include:

• increasing planning fees to better fund local authority planning departments
• creating a £13.5m team of planners and experts to supercharge housing delivery in investment zones
• establishing a £24m Planning Skills Delivery Fund to support local authority planning teams
• starting a consultation on proposed permitted development rights that would make conversions of offices and stores into homes easier
• launching the Office for Place, which will be dedicated to supporting high-quality design in housing
• reiterating the government’s commitment to making second staircases mandatory in new residential buildings that are at least 18-metres tall

Read the full transcript of Gove’s speech

What does the industry think?

When asked her thoughts on the speech, Melissa Wilson, director at Deloitte, started out optimistic.

“It is positive to see recognition of the role cities and urban centres play in delivering the housing ambition, especially given the scale of delivery achieved over the past 10 years in Manchester and Salford city centres,” she said.

And then she added some caveats.

“The quality of the urban environment and delivery of key infrastructure will be critical to creating successful places,” Wilson continued.

“There are no quick fixes, especially in regional markets, and key part of the solution will be better working models with private sector partners and investors.”

She also noted that there was no mention of sustainability or net zero in the government’s plan.

“This needs to be addressed as investment and delivery will be constrained unless government supports that agenda and the challenges it presents to delivery at scale and at pace,” she concluded.

Paul Nellist, associate partner at Asteer Planning, was worried about the focus on cities and what the speech meant for housing targets.

“Following Gove’s speech, the government’s previous watering down of ‘housing targets’ to appease rebel MPs, looks more likely to become national policy,” Nellist said.

“Those targets already included a 35% uplift for cities (including Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds), and the rapid regeneration of these cities, would suggest that a lot of people clearly want to live there.

“However, the implication that people should not want to live in other areas is simply wrong,” he continued.

“Whilst it may help win votes, the approach outlined will do nothing to deliver enough housing, in particularly family and affordable,  throughout most of the North West.”

Thomas O’Kane, associate at P4 Planning, was similarly unimpressed by Gove’s words, calling it the “same old rhetoric”.

“Tackling the housing crisis requires action on all fronts,” he continued, identifying the need for support for SME housebuilders, updating of local plans, clarification of housing targets, review of the Green Belt – as well as the speech’s proposed major investment in urban regeneration.

“Successive governments have put forward regeneration of cities and that obviously needs to come forward, but unfortunately it won’t be enough to address our housing needs,” he concluded.

Caroline Baker, managing partner of the North West at Cushman & Wakefield echoed O’Kane’s concern that this would not be enough to truly meet the challenges facing housing delivery – especially when it came to government’s proposed planning changes to encourage residential conversions.

“The ability to convert existing buildings into new homes does not require changes to the planning system it requires, in many cases, more grant funding to overcome viability issues, especially following significant increases in development and finance costs,” she said.

However, she was optimistic about other elements of the speech.

“Overall I welcome Gove’s commitment and new initiatives to support the densification of our towns and cities through the delivery of more safe, decent, and warm homes,” she said.

Thomas Pearson, head of real estate commercial at JMW Solicitors, also picked up on the conversion portion of the speech. Previous changes to planning regarding office-to-residential conversions had been met with approval by Pearson’s clients.

“Those eager to see permitted development changes expand will welcome this,” Pearson said. “What can actually be delivered in these units remains to be seen.”

He was particularly interested in the conversion of retail spaces to homes.

“With the impact on retail in recent years there is more vacant space and rejuvenation of this space into alternative uses will hopefully revive these areas,” Pearson said.

“But it is worth noting a word of caution – as following past consultation on this in early 2021, BPF said the proposal would have significant adverse consequences and exacerbate the decline of the UK’s high streets, far outweighing any positive contribution to new housing supply”,” he concluded.

Sandy Livingstone, executive director of property at Onward Homes, was much more optimistic in his feedback than others Place spoke to.

“We are pleased to see the government recognising the value of regeneration and investing in brownfield land, to improve the quality and choice of housing for all,” he said. “Offering renewal and opportunity to our communities will be key to driving economic growth at both a local and national level.

“It is important, however, that any extension of permitted development regulations does not detract from our larger-scale placemaking ambitions,” he continued.

“I look forward to more of our great Northern cities like Preston, Liverpool, and areas of Greater Manchester benefitting from much-needed investment over the coming years.”

Zeroing in on Barrow-in-Furness

Jo Lappin, chief executive of Cumbria LEP, said she welcomed Gove’s commitment to Barrow-in-Furness. Barrow-in-Furness, she pointed out, is Cumbria’s second-largest town and is already a hub for the defence, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy industries.

“All of the component parts are in place to provide a platform for significant growth, including a new learning quarter and a commitment to build much-needed new homes on the waterside site,” Lappin said.

“It will also create the opportunity to transform the whole area and address unemployment, transport connectivity, skills gaps, low-quality housing, and health issues. Barrow will need significant, sustained investment to turn this ambition into a reality.”

Cllr Patricia Bell, deputy leader of Westmorland and Furness Council, spoke about why these new homes are needed in Barrow-in-Furness.

“Barrow is a global leader in a number of high-tech sectors including subsea and green energy through BAE Systems Ltd, innovative SMEs, and an established supply chain,” she said. “This is going to result in the creation of thousands of new, well-paid jobs in the coming decades, particularly through BAE System’s involvement in Aukus.”

Bell also shared her support for the government’s decision to prioritise her area.

“With strategic housing sites already identified in the area, we welcome yesterday’s announcement that will help to bring forward the range of new homes needed to help attract people and families to Barrow, ensuring that the area can fully benefit from the significant opportunities coming forward in the future,” she said.

“We look forward to welcoming cabinet secretary, Simon Case, later this week to scope out areas for significant further expansion and investment.”

Sebastian Tibenham, executive director of Pegasus Group, agreed that Barrow-in-Furness was loaded with potential – but noted that it could also be an example of failed government ambition.

“Barrow is undoubtably a location that should incorporate additional housing into its overall strategy for regeneration and investment,” Tibenham said.

“Looking back, Barrow was afforded certain ‘urban renaissance’ kudos in the revoked NW Regional Spatial Strategy and tasked with delivering 2,700 new homes by 2021,” he continued.

“Fast forward to the government’s standard method for calculating local housing needs, Barrow is afforded a negative/zero housing requirement and census figures showed the town grew by 35 households between 2011-2021.

“Fingers crossed, Gove’s plans will now spearhead its previously planned regeneration trajectory as set by the RSS a number of decades ago.”

What about that dream team?

Gove’s formation of a “super-squad” team of planners and other experts was one of the more interesting aspects of the speech. The team is being “deployed” in Cambridge first and it will be there that the team’s effectiveness will be measured.

Tibenham was cautiously optimistic about the creation of the team.

“The government are putting in resources to ensure major schemes involving housing deliver get the attention they deserve,” he said. “This sounds great but I’m not getting too excited in terms of the benefits of the North West at this stage because other areas don’t appear to get a look in until Cambridge has sorted itself out.”

But if Cambridge does sort itself out, there could be larger benefit to the North West, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Baker. The Cambridge housing push is all about providing good homes for those working in life sciences – a sector that the North West is looking to grow in as well.

This could mean more consideration is due for the region by the government.

“Our North West Life Science Cluster along the Manchester Corridor and in North Cheshire could support and complement the government’s commitment to supercharging Cambridge in the global hierarchy,” she said.

“The North West can offer both more affordable lab space as well as a more affordable location for workers.”

• Read the government’s summary of the proposed changes

The post Gove outlines long-term plan for housing; industry reacts appeared first on Place North West.

Trafford Council said investment returns from the £22.5m loan would be spent on “support services and regeneration activity within the borough”. 

Cllr Liz Patel, Trafford Council’s executive member for economy and regeneration, said: “This scheme is an important investment opportunity for us, supporting regeneration in Greater Manchester and providing an investment return for Trafford Council.  

“We look forward to seeing the scheme progress.” 

Designed by Hodder+Partners, the Manchester development would comprise two buildings of 10 and 13 storeys, fronting Mirabel Street and Great Ducie Street respectively.   

The has a gross development value of £40m and is One Heritage’s largest to start on site to date.

Jason Upton, chief executive of One Heritage, said: “One Victoria is a significant regeneration project in the heart of Manchester and we are pleased to be involved as development manager.

“Our recently strengthened team looks forward to managing the successful delivery of this significant city centre project.”

Trafford Council was advised by CBRE’s lending team within its capital advisors business.  

Andrew Antoniades, head of lending in the team, said: “Trafford Council’s funding of this scheme is a crucial investment in Manchester, which is tipped to experience strong population growth in the next decade and has the largest proportion of households in the private rented sector, outside of London.”  

Freeths acted on the legal due diligence for Trafford while Dalbergia is retained to monitor the scheme on their behalf. 

Trafford Council is no stranger to investments in neighbouring boroughs. In recent years it has pumped cash into Salboy’s Castle Irwell scheme in Salford to the tune of £19m, and £27m into Kinrise’s refurbishment of Sunlight House in Manchester.

• Hear from Trafford Council at the Greater Manchester Development Update on 7 September

The post Trafford loans One Heritage £22.5m for Manchester resi  appeared first on Place North West.

Participants

• James Blakey, planning director at Moda
• Ed Britton, director at Deloitte
• Shannon Conway, residential director at Glenbrook
• Joanne Harding, local plans manager at Home Builders Federation
• Victoria Hunter, senior development manager at Far East Consortium
• Mark McNamee, managing director of Cityheart
• Darren Muir, director of planning at Pegasus
• Colin Muller, founder and chief executive of Muller Property Group
• Ellie Philcox, director at Euan Kellie Property Solutions
• Paul Smith, managing director of Strategic Land Group
• John Walker, head of UK and Europe real estate and infrastructure at C|T Group
• Anna Wrigglesworth, director at C|T Group
• Chaired by Dan Whelan, senior reporter at Place North West

Key talking points

The roundtable began with a presentation of survey results from strategic advisory company C|T Group, which asked voters in England their thoughts on what the term “Green Belt” means and how that impacts their feelings on building on land with that designation.

According to the survey, 69% of those asked felt Green Belt was solely aimed at protecting countryside and landscapes. However, when these same groups were presented with an accurate definition of the term, which also plays a role in preventing urban sprawl, feelings on development on Green Belt shifted.

Once it was clear it was not only about greenfield and could include brownfield sites, only 15% maintained a stance that no development should take place on Green Belt.

Those attending the roundtable agreed that the results made clear that more needed to be done to educate the public on the nuances of Green Belt. A rebrand of Green Belt was even suggested, given the name evokes the image of countryside more than, perhaps, it ought to.

The discussion was about more than just Green Belt, however. Time was also spent on best practices for consultation and how to drive support for a project.

Too much time is often spent on trying to convert those that oppose a scheme, it was argued. That time could be better spent on getting supporters engaged.

You can hear highlights from the roundtable in the video at the top of this article, as well as on the Place North West YouTube channel. Learn more about C|T Group at ctgroup.com.

The post VIDEO | Digging into the public perception of planning appeared first on Place North West.

THIS WEEK

• Teesside teaser: can a change in political power, and a new mayoral development corporation, begin to resolve Middlesbrough’s property problems?
• Elevator pitch: your weekly rundown of who and what is going up, and who is heading the other way

TEESSIDE TEASER

Muddlesbrough untangled?

There’s a genuine shortage of good office and industrial floorspace in Middlesbrough. Can new council leadership, and a new mayoral development corporation, cut through?

There’s a story to tell about Middlesbrough beyond the usual cliches about huge industrial facilities and lots of empty space (see local view above). Demand for new office and industrial floorspace is good – excellent, say some – and whilst volumes won’t blow your mind, it’s genuine and unmet. This is an opportunity, surely?

Nice little market

First, the good news. The commercial property market is back in business. Centre Square will create 200,000 sq ft of prime town centre offices in six buildings – two are complete so far. It’s the kind of space that local occupiers like AXA Insurance rather enjoy – having taken a 40,000 sq ft building, completed by Ashall Projects and funded by the Tees Valley Mayor and local council. In the industrial sector, Tees Advance Manufacturing Park’s 180,000 sq ft first phase has been scooping up tenants. The council is the main mover here along with the Tees Valley Mayor and partners including Cleveland Property Developments.

Supply issues

“TeesAMPS and Centre Square show commercial property can work. There’s limited supply and real demand,” says Dodds Brown senior partner Stephen Brown. Top office quoting rents are about £21.50/sq ft, which is £5/sq ft short of viability, give or take. Tees Valley Combined Authority figures show the supply of office space was down 10% between 2016 and 2021, during the permitted development rights period.

Unhappy

So what’s the problem? Whilst Middlesbrough Council has clearly pulled its regeneration weight, it has done so against an unsettled background. The council recently lost its chief executive in what amounted to a coup d’etat, and what’s left has been given a written warning by the government for wasting money and bad “cultural and governance” issues. The council has until January 2024 to show it can improve, otherwise, ministers will take matters into their own hands.

Cleaning the streets

A new Labour Mayor, Chris Cooke, backed by a new Labour council majority replaced the Independent/Conservative regime two months ago. They have a big job ahead.

The worry is about routine capacity and long-term vision. For instance, it’s dandy to build new offices but if the surrounding area isn’t maintained, and the town centre fails to thrive, then shiny new office blocks won’t stay full.

“Office occupiers need to know their car is safe,” as one bone-dry observer put it to Subplot. Put this another way: “What’s needed is a deliverable, sustainable plan to take things forward once building work is completed,” says Brown. His concern is that the focus is on residential at the expense of commercial use in the town centre, and the wrong mix could be damaging.

Opportunities

These concerns – and question marks over the future of council-owned retail assets the 400,000 sq ft Cleveland Centre and the 120,000 sq ft former House of Fraser department store – raise questions for investors or occupiers. When approached by Subplot, the council said it planned to continue to manage the (viable) shopping centre, and wanted to sell or let the department store. There are folk in the town who wonder if that’s good enough. The new development corporation strategy could put those fears to rest (see below).

Clarity needed

Problem two is HM Government’s plan for an investment zone in the town. It sounds promising, and everyone loves the idea, but as Subplot reported last week (13 July), the details of who gets what are still sketchy. It’s early days. For now, Subplot has heard tales of investors deciding to sit on their hands, and occupiers pausing requirements for Centre Square thinking that, if they wait, they’ll qualify for investment zone capital allowances or tax breaks. This is not ideal.

Two tribes

Behind these concerns sit doubts that the council and the new mayoral development corporation can work together. Middlesbrough Mayor Cooke and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen sail under different flags, and Middlesbrough Labour hasn’t been a massive enthusiast of Houchen’s corporation. The new MDC board – including Cooke and Houchen – met yesterday to consider strategy. You can read the full text here. Arup advised.

The new plan

Highlights include new digital and media properties in the Boho cluster (already prepping a 35,000 sq ft extension, as Place North East reported), and redevelopment of the ex-House of Fraser store, former Debenhams, and Civic Centre; a new school of art campus anchoring the Centre Square neighbourhood, and a historic quarter. It all sounds clean and bright and good.

Cold water

Where does this leave us? Subplot spoke to one of Yorkshire’s big regeneration brains, and an acknowledged development corporation expert.

“Politicians see a fashionable regeneration idea and they want to have it – but that’s the wrong way round,” the expert says. “The delivery vehicle has to follow the function, what you want. You have to know what you want. And it requires strong leadership, which goes beyond electoral cycles. I mean, if this were easy, it would already have been done.”

Could politics and the desire to deliver results quickly, in time for elections, screw up what might otherwise be an appealing and achievable town centre regeneration? As Stockport’s MDC shows (Subplot, 13 July), politics is often decisive for the success of development corporations. Middlesbrough has a big challenge ahead.

ELEVATOR PITCH

Going up, or going down? This week’s movers

Manchester’s Factory International plunges to the basement car park loaded with new borrowing. Levelling up money also goes missing somewhere near the ground floor. Doors closing, going down!

Factory International funding

Another £20m of Manchester City Council (borrowed) money gets tipped into the huge hole that is Factory International, mooted in 2014, now double its original 2017 budget of £110m, and still not finished. Covid was a pain, and rising inflation hasn’t helped, nor did a rush to have something ready for the 2023 Manchester International Festival. Why the rush? Because the project was already two (or four) years late.

A council report also blames the “complexity and uniqueness of the building.” Maybe somebody should have thought of this because concert halls are not uncommon, art galleries are pretty well understood, and complexity is an obvious cause of financial risk in any building. If all this complexity produced a stunning eye-catching landmark of global appeal then maybe it’d be worth it, but judging by below-the-line reactions to Place North West’s coverage, it hasn’t.

The big question all through has been: who is or was in charge of this monster (Subplot, 21 February 2021)? The latest council report lists five – five! – responsible senior officers, which maybe tells its own story. It isn’t very encouraging that the £330m Manchester Town Hall project is also heading into years of delay.

Towns fund, affordable housing, etc, etc

A footnote to last week’s update on HM Government’s investment zone plans. TL;DR if you were hoping the levelling up agenda would turn into a wonderful work stream, think again. Last week, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities returned £1.9bn of unspent 2022/23 funding, a large slug of which was meant to unlock affordable housing. Apparently, it can only be spent when the property market is doing well, which seems the exact reverse of how it ought to be, but who are we to judge the ways of Whitehall?

Whilst one spending pot atrophies, a couple more are in limbo. The £2.6bn UK Shared Prosperity Fund, intended to replace EU regional money, is moving glacially, and on a very modest scale. A list of grants awarded in June isn’t likely to cause a stir or spread much prosperity – could Liverpool City Region contain its excitement at getting £1.4m? – and the whole idea seems to be on ice.

The Towns Fund got off to a flying start but has since landed heavily. A second round of funding isn’t looking likely. The website died in late 2021.

The post The Subplot | Muddlesbrough untangled, Towns Fund, Manchester arts appeared first on Place North West.

THIS WEEK

• Mayoral methods: are mayoral development corporations the future of high-profile urban regeneration?
• Elevator pitch: your weekly rundown of who and what is going up, and who is heading the other way

MAYORAL METHODS

Political ambition meets economic reality

Can mayoral development corporations deliver the economic transformation that city region mayors – and Michael Gove’s Levelling Up Department – want to see? Or is Stockport a standalone success?

City region mayors are under pressure to produce economic results, so they are throwing regeneration strategies at the wall to see what sticks. Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and Tees Valley have gone down different routes. So far only one approach has been tried in more than one region: mayoral development corporations – bodies with statutory powers to guide development and investment in their areas. Is the experiment working?

This is tricky

Answer: it’s complicated, as a glance at the existing MDCs in Stockport and South Tees quickly reveals. South Tees MDC has spread much happiness so far. The touted £3bn opportunity at Teesworks attracted criticism, and is now enduring a government-commissioned review into how it shuffles assets around. The project itself has a long way to go: the Teesside Steelworks was demolished only a few weeks ago. The site is also a Freeport.

Stockport meanwhile is scooping up deals and developments like every day’s a birthday. The latest are a 15-storey apartment block and a commitment to another 65,000 sq ft of offices.

Why the contrast?

There are two theories. Theory one says it’s largely about the political context. In Teesside, the corporation is part of fierce party-political conflict, but in Stockport it was born in cross-party consensus. Cllr Mark Hunter, the recently reinstalled Lib Dem Leader of Stockport Council, says: “I’d reject any comparison with Teesside, but from the get-go – and never underestimate this – Stockport’s MDC had cross-party support, and that’s crucial for developers and investors. Without it they might have had second thoughts, but we all lined up behind it and that is a distinct advantage.”

Or maybe this

Theory two is that MDCs are simply not well adapted to monumental tasks like turning wastelands into economic powerhouses. What they are good at is promoting sensible opportunities to which the market was already rather taking a fancy. Put this another way, MDCs struggle to handle market failure on a large scale, but are ideal for managing market movement on a smaller scale.

Hunter isn’t so sure about this theory, but doesn’t completely reject it. “Stockport was already going places before the MDC – but what the town centre regeneration needed was a spark, which the MDC gave us,” he says. Hunter agrees infrastructure spending is key – and recalls the pledge to send Metrolink trams to Stockport.

Very rare

If MDCs had proved their value outside of a fairly limited set of circumstances – eg well-defined (in time and space), oven-ready commercial opportunities – we’d expect to see lots more of them in the North. But we aren’t seeing them.

Maybe Labour politicians can’t overcome long-held antipathy, but in West Yorkshire there are enterprise zones, of course, and individual projects in “spatial priority areas” but there’s no separate delivery vehicle or governance structure like an MDC. South Yorkshire is heading towards a government-backed investment zone for the Sheffield-Rotherham corridor but again nothing like an MDC. Liverpool City region has a Freeport and a management board to run it. Most telling of all, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has no current plans to create another MDC (Subplot asked). The focus now is on Bury-Rochdale-Oldham’s Atom Valley and Tameside’s Ashton as “mayoral development zones.”

Instead, let’s try something else

Will mayoral development zones like Atom Valley make a good alternative to MDCs? Ashton and Atom Valley will have boards to run them, but it’s all very homemade: no separate statutory power is being used, the board has no special powers of its own, and when the project needs some legal or financial oomph the combined authority will provide it. The fact that landowners are already working with Bury, Oldham, and Rochdale councils – so this isn’t about marketing sites, it’s more about infrastructure – seems to be at the root of the choice to create something resembling a forum or clearing house, and not a delivery vehicle. Read the GMCA’s rationale.

Bit old-fashioned?

MDCs share the strengths and weaknesses of urban development corporations experimented with in the 1980s and ’90s. Creating a development corporation involves a statutory process leading to the conferral of independent powers from an ‘a la carte’ menu of options: planning, compulsory purchase, money, and so on. It is the exact opposite of light touch. In contrast, MDZs are whatever the mayor and council leaders want them to be. They are very 2020s.

Puzzling enthusiasm

Which makes it perplexing that Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has a retro-chic enthusiasm for development corporations – and has championed new MDCs in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. If Cllr Mark Hunter is right – and political consensus is necessary for a development corporation to work – then the Middlesbrough plan got off to a rocky start. A lot of Labour councillors are unhappy. Is this why hardly anybody else in the North is creating MDCs or aspiring to do so?

Stockport begins to look like the exception, unless MDCs can transform Hartlepool and Middlesbrough soon.

­

ELEVATOR PITCH

Going up, or going down? This week’s movers

Manchester city centre office take-up is going down, and the anxiety-laden world of co-development is heading the other way. Doors closing, going up!

Co-development

Are you familiar with the principles of co-development? You’d better be if you want to submit a successful bid for £80m investment zone funding, according to government guidelines published this week.

The technical note explains that this means “locally led” proposals where “co-development will be genuinely iterative.” This seems to mean councils suggest ideas, and then there’s lots of back-and-forth with Whitehall on whether the ideas are any good. Once something is agreed the government “will set broad but clear criteria and agree specific outputs and outcomes against which to hold places to account for progress.”

All in all, it reads like HM Treasury fears the whole thing is a value-for-money disaster waiting to happen, and a tight grip must be maintained. It also comes with a big warning: “We reserve the right to reject an investment zone proposal even after it has passed through all the gateways.”

The first sifting comes this summer to determine “if we consider agreement unlikely in good time ahead of the financial year 2024/2025.” Note the upbeat positive tone.

Manchester offices

Too soon to declare this a slowdown, but there’s a modest slackening of pace in central Manchester’s office market. Second quarter data from Manchester Office Agents Forum shows take-up down to 179,000 sq ft, from 211,000 sq ft in Q1 2023, and down almost a third compared with the same period last year (251,000 sq ft in Q2 2022).

None of this is a disaster, but bear in mind that in Birmingham things are heading the other way. After a few years of sluggish take-up, the market is on a charge. In a smaller market, central Birmingham also scored 179,000 sq ft in Q2 2023. The first half total was 331,000 sq ft, more than double the H1 2022 total and well up on H1 2021, and comparing well with Manchester’s H1 total of 390,000 sq ft. Straws in the wind, perhaps.

The post The Subplot | Mayoral methods, investment zones, offices appeared first on Place North West.

The decision to award costs was made in November, but the exact financial figure was not known at the time. Now a council cabinet report has revealed the final bill of what Bolton Council owes Peel: £467,746.61. The funds will come from the council’s corporate reserves.

Peel’s Hulton Park plans focus on building a Ryder Cup-standard golf course, primary school, an assortment of shops and leisure facilities, and more than 1,000 homes on 880 acres by Newbrook Road in Westhoughton.

Much of the land is allocated as Green Belt, which had been one of the reasons for the council’s near-unanimous decision to refuse the project in February 2022 against officer recommendation.

The decision had come as a surprise, considering that this was the second version of a previously approved application. This newer version has less of an impact on Green Belt than the older one. Peel’s decision to appeal the refusal was therefore expected.

After consulting with its legal team, Bolton Council ultimately decided to not defend its decision at the appeal before the Planning Inspectorate. That appeal had ended in October, with the Planning Inspectorate ruling in favour of Peel.

The Hulton Park appeal’s reference number with the Planning Inspectorate is APP/N4205/W/22/3299644.

The reference number for the planning application with Bolton Council is 12218/21.

The post Bolton to pay £467,800 after losing Hulton Park appeal appeared first on Place North West.

On this episode of the Place North West podcast, McCormack, Garratt, and Sadek reflected on a frank and honest discussion with industry leaders that law firm Winckworth Sherwood hosted during the Chartered Institute for Housing’s annual conference, Housing 2023.

During the podcast, the trio discussed with Place senior reporter Dan Whelan the industry’s biggest gripes, why the planning system should be left alone, and what the future of housing delivery might look like. 

Listen to the podcast at the top of this page to hear McCormack, Garratt, and Sedak’s insights into how the way houses are delivered in the UK could be streamlined.

To find out more about Winckworth Sherwood, visit wslaw.co.uk. 

Don’t miss a single Place podcast episode. Subscribe to our series on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Stay up-to-date on the latest in the property industry by subscribing to our free newsletter, delivered to your inbox just in time for lunch every weekday. 

The post PODCAST | How to build more homes in uncertain times  appeared first on Place North West.

Speaking at the Chartered Institute for Housing’s annual conference in Manchester, Andy Burnham slammed the state of the city region’s rented housing stock, more than a quarter of which is of poor quality, according to research. 

“It is hard to believe that this is happening in the North of England in the 2020s,” Burnham said. 

“It suggests that not much has changed since George Orwell chronicled the grim reality of housing in the north 85 years ago in The Road to Wigan Pier.” 

Greater enforcement powers

The Mayor outlined the combined authority’s approach – underpinned and funded by the trailblazer devolution deal – to improving housing conditions in Greater Manchester that he said would amount to a ‘complete rewiring of the system’. 

From 2024, beefed-up enforcement powers could see the local councils repossess poor-quality properties as part of Burnham’s plans to ensure everyone has a decent home in 15 years’ time. 

“A home is the essential foundation that needs to be beneath everybody if they are to have a good life,” he said. 

“You cannot level up any parts of the UK when half of its housing stock is falling down.” 

Speaking to Place North West, Burnham warned bad landlords that their time is up. 

“My message to those landlords is that you cannot carry on as you are. Whether you like it or not, change is coming. 

“We won’t accept people renting out properties that are not fit for human habitation. That is not on anymore.” 

A catalyst for change

The Mayor cited the death of toddler Awaab Ishak – who died in Rochdale as a result of poor-quality housing – as a catalyst for change but insisted that a strategy to tackle unfit housing in Greater Manchester was already in the works prior to the coroner’s verdict in that case. 

“A two-year-old boy was killed by his home and that can only be a moral outrage,” he said. 

“It’s an entirely manmade problem, an indictment of national housing policy under successive governments.” 

Speaking on Tuesday, Burnham reiterated plans to launch a Good Landlord Charter, first announced earlier this year, that is aimed at improving housing standards in the social and private rented sectors and smoking out bad landlords.

The charter would give tenants “visibility through the accreditation of the many good landlords in our city region who are trying to do the right thing and differentiate them from those who are not,” Burnham said. 

The Mayor hopes the charter will make clear what is expected of landlords and ensure that tenants and landlords know what each should be getting from the other. 

All landlords will be given the chance to sign up to the charter and Burnham has a plan for those who don’t. 

Empowering tenants

The GM Property Check system will “empower tenants” to report bad quality housing and comprises a “multi-agency approach” to enforcement involving councils, the DWP, and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, Burnham said. 

Landlords who are found to not be maintaining their properties will then be given a chance to embark on an “improvement plan” with the GMCA. 

Those who do not could risk having their properties repossessed. 

In order for this element of the plan to work, Burnham recognises the need for a “streamlined” compulsory purchase process, as well as backing from Whitehall. 

“We’ll be seeking the help of Parliament and the courts to make it easier and less costly for councils to take properties out of the hands of those unscrupulous landlords and into the hands of those who will manage them properly,” Burnham said.

The post Burnham wages war on bad landlords  appeared first on Place North West.

The sponsors were Genesis Homes, WeFibre, and Waterman Group.

The state of the market

The pandemic led to extremely good residential sales in 2021, said Rachel Bagshaw, head of land agency South Lakes at H&H Land & Estates, in the first presentation, with 2022 seeing a lack of supply which led to prices increasing. More recently, the Mini-Budget of 2022 caused huge market uncertainty, while the cost of living and rising interest rates meant the market died down. “Since January we have seen that stabilise,” she added.

“Seller expectations are still quite high and we are seeing overinflated guide prices being put on properties by some agents which is a reflection of lack of volume,” Bagshaw said.

She said she’d seen a significant increase in rents in the last year as there were not enough properties available – something she predicted would become more widespread as landlords sold up to avoid changing legislation and interest rates.

The land market is strong, including smallholdings as “people seek a bit of the good life”, while reductions in farm subsidies mean owners are revaluating their businesses. Agricultural land prices remain steady, while development land sales are seeing strong interest, particularly on larger sites.

From left: H&H Land & Estates’ Rachel Bagshaw, Cumbria Tourism’s Dan Visser, Westmorland and Furness Council’s Angela Jones, and Genesis Homes’ Nicky Gordon. Credit: PNW

Planning problems

Delayed planning was a consistent theme throughout the first panel discussion. Bagshaw said these delays couldn’t be helped in the short term by the transition to two unitaries. She also said new rules around biodiversity net gain and nutrient neutrality were having an impact, particularly on the number of new homes being granted planning permission.

Angela Jones, director of thriving places at Westmorland and Furness Council, said the new authorities had an “absolute commitment to replacing the layers of bureaucracy”. She did highlight skills shortages, particularly around planning, and said using agency contractors was not a long-term solution.

Nicky Gordon, chief executive of Genesis Homes, added: “I’m looking for an element of accountability to come from the councils. When you make applications and have a specific business plan as to when planning will be achieved, accessibility and communication really have to come in to play.”

Jones responded: “We are committed to that collaboration. Hopefully new leadership, new start. Contact me, contact my team.”

Gordon also asked how to engage councillors in a pro-development way. Jones said briefings were underway and officer delegation was used as much as possible: “We have an ambition for inclusive growth and want to be an enabler, not a blocker.”

Workforce woes

Dan Visser, chair of Cumbria Tourism, said the group was starting a new destination management plan to carry forward for the next five to 10 years. Discussing current problems for his industry, he said: “Labour supply is the biggest challenge. We have significant housing issues and a significant lack of appropriate public transport.

“Where we do have pockets of labour, moving that labour to where there is work is being carried out by the private sector. Six or seven 50-seater coaches a day go from the west coast to the Lake District to move labour around and that comes at a huge cost. That’s stifling profit and development.”

Jones said that the working age population was declining in the county and talent was still being lost to other parts of the country. She added: “Transport connectivity and housing are absolutely top of our agenda.”

Hatmaker highlighted that less than 500,000 people live in Cumbria, while the city of Manchester has 50,000 more people and is 1% of the county’s size. She asked what can be done to attract more people.

Gordon said the county has the landscape and also sectors like advanced engineering, nuclear, as well as housing and new build: “Brand Cumbria has to be much stronger.”

Jones added thriving town centres, good education and the right sort of housing mix to the attraction wishlist and said: “Planning is critical to this, but it’s one part of a jigsaw.”

Genesis Homes’ Nicky Gordon: ‘Brand Cumbria has to be much stronger.’ Credit: PNW

Barrow & BAE

Much was discussed about the prospects for Barrow following news of BAE’s new submarine contracts.

Jones told the room: “BAE are looking to grow their workforce by 50% and they recognise that is going to soak up a lot of our workforce. How do we address that? It’s about growing our own and that all comes back to young people. You can hold us to account but we all have a part to play.”

Bagshaw added: “It’s getting people in there and getting them to stay and invest their money there.”

Second homes

Referencing a new government registration scheme for holiday accommodation, Visser said it would be a valuable tool in identifying areas of imbalance where holiday lets outweigh residential properties. But he said there were two problems – it’s not retrospective so only adds those with new planning consents, and it doesn’t include second homes.

“We have a big challenge where we have dwellings that stand empty for most of the year,” he said.

Jones added: “Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness, the LEP and Cumbria Tourism are all aligned in our response. It’s about balance and new legislation will go some way to address that.”

Backing the brand

The first panel was all on the same page about the importance of ‘Brand Cumbria’.

Bagshaw said: “The environment is a massive asset but the promotion of the county is that we do have job opportunities, we do have exciting careers, to draw people in.”

Gordon said: “I urge you to revolutionise the message about what is available in Cumbria. When you take the most advanced engineering in the world in Barrow, Sellafield decommissioning and the major message for a new reactor, the tourism industry dominating in the centre and the service all around it, it’s there. It just needs delivery.”

Cumbria LEP’s Jo Lappin spoke about the county’s future ambitions and how it is going to achieve them. Credit: PNW

Attracting investment

Capitalising on Cumbria’s potential was a theme in the second presentation, which was from Cumbria LEP chief executive Jo Lappin.

“We are very focused on building our competitive advantages,” said Lappin . “We need to push with the grain of policy. We’ve worked seriously on developing credible investable propositions. We want to get investment sources. The public purse is super constrained so how do we work with private businesses to lever their investments?”

She described the LEP’s three strategic touchstones: improving productivity, delivering inclusive growth, and net zero energy generation and decarbonisation.

Britain’s Energy Coast

Lappin also spoke strongly about Cumbria’s clean energy potential and her hope that the county would regain its title as host of the world’s largest offshore windfarm – lost to the east coast a couple of years ago.

“Cumbria has way less than 1% of the population of the UK, yet we create almost 6% of the UK’s clean energy which is punching way above our weight.”

She highlighted all Cumbria’s clean energy sources – on-and-off-shore wind farms, solar, biomass, and anaerobic – but warned there was no point in leading the way on this without also tackling business decarbonisation.

From left: Spirit Energy’s Jill Glennie, Cumberland Council’s Jane Meek, Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster’s Dianne Richardson, BEC’s Bill Graham, and Cumbria LEP’s Jo Lappin. Credit: PNW

New ambition

Transitioning to the second panel discussion, Lappin identified five locations – Carlisle Energy Hub, Workington, Moorside and Sellafield, Barrow Green Energy Hub and Cumbria Rural Testbed – to work with businesses and move forward Cumbria’s energy coast offer.

Bill Graham, head of estates at BEC, said: “It is very clear that historically the focus was on nuclear, but it’s wider than that.”

Dianne Richardson, chief executive of Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster, agreed and added: “A lot of talk about Sellafield is decommissioning but there is a big opportunity to use it as a catalyst and really deliver as Britain’s Energy Coast.”

Emphasising the UK’s reliance on overseas energy and expressing concern about the detail of the government’s energy security strategy, Lappin said: “The bit that’s missing is nuclear. We’ve waited a long time for a finance vehicle which will allow nuclear to proceed.”

Richardson agreed and said: “We need the government to concentrate. We’ve got members who are in the new nuclear arena and can deliver solutions across large nuclear and small reactors. An organisation, Solway Community Power Company, has proved that investors want to invest. All they need to see is that government wants this to go ahead.

“The problem we have is that the land available for this to happen is under government control through the NDA. We can make it happen – here, in our community. We are too reliant on the public purse. Let’s start getting some private investment in.”

Net zero

Spirit Energy is predominately a gas business but is now pushing towards net zero. Its Morecambe Net Zero (MNZ) Cluster has the potential to become one of the UK’s largest carbon storage hubs with the capacity to store up to a gigatonne of carbon dioxide, equivalent to three years’ worth of current UK carbon dioxide emissions.

Jill Glennie, the company’s head of communications, said: “We are blessed with natural beauty and geography but also geology as well. Local support has been amazing, but we also need the government to support our ambitions.”

Coal v clean energy

The approval for a new coal mine had to be discussed. Richardson said there had been a very polarised debate around jobs versus the environment but that the messages were more nuanced, like how the need for steel for schemes such as windfarms could currently happen without coking coal: “That’s an interesting problem to have.”

BECBC’s Dianne Richardson argued that the conversation around the new coal mine needed to be more nuanced. Credit: PNW

Taking the train

Jane Meek, assistant director of thriving place and investment at Cumberland Council, detailed how the strong push for Carlisle Station to form a better gateway to the region ongoing – and she wants to capitalise on HS2 as a location where longer trains could split. She added: “We continue to have that ambition. We need to show government what we have to offer. Good infrastructure is so important if we are going to increase our productivity.”

Developing partnerships

Graham used the Bus Station in Whitehaven as an example of great collaboration between public and private sector in the county. He said: “It was a derelict, dilapidated gateway. The stakeholders have transformed the whole area.

“The skillset here is second to none. There is a lot of social value. That creates massive opportunities, like hotels getting people from the Lake District to the west coast riviera.”

Glennie described her company’s partnerships with schools and colleges, as well as employers like BAE: “We all want great people and great skills.”

Going for growth

Meek said: “We identified years ago that there was a need to increase the number of people of working age to support the businesses we’ve got. We set a very strong strategy and that meant getting our local plan right. We delivered it within five years and that included St Cuthbert’s Garden Village. That now has got strength and we now have the funding for the new southern relief road, as well as delivering 10,000 new homes and that isn’t about being a suburban extension of Carlisle, it’s about providing somewhere people want to live.”

Slides

Jo Lappin, Cumbria LEP

Rachel Bagshaw, H&H Land & Estates

What’s next?

Place North West has assembled two panels of experts to delve into best practices for new-build schemes and larger retrofit projects at our Sustainability in Practice event on 6 July. Book your tickets.

Click on any image to launch gallery