Commercial property is a vital sector for the economy and society – but Gagan Mohindra MP argues it needs to undergo the kind of radical transformation that has swept the housing market in the last 20 years and has launched the new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Regeneration & Development to help drive this change
Property is changing and the national lockdown is accelerating the rate of change. All sectors of the UK’s property market are under pressure. And yet the one thing that doesn’t change is the importance of the sector.
Property is an important sector in its own right, employing tens of thousands of people and paying substantial taxes, but even more significant than this, property provides the infrastructure for the entire economy.
All sectors rely on the property that you provide. You plan, design, build, manage and maintain the workplaces, shopping centres, hotels, warehouses, houses, gyms, train stations and factories that the entire population uses.
Transforming commercial property
I want to transform commercial property in a similar way to how the housing market has changed over the last two decades.
Housing used to be a battleground between different ideologies. The Labour party thought that it owned council houses and their tenants, and their answer to every problem was greater public sector ownership, with the state as builder and landlord. Conservatives thought that the market could solve every problem because houses were assumed to be like every other product. They were both wrong.
Since those times, the political landscape has changed hugely for the better. There are very few Conservatives now who think that “the market” on its own can provide the housing that the country needs.
There is widescale recognition that government, local and national, plays several key roles in a successful housing market: setting targets, monitoring progress, reforming planning, releasing land, ensuring that the market is fluid, and even underwriting the risk of house construction and house purchase.
But while housing has risen up the political agenda, and attracted considerable financial support in the process, the rest of the property sector is struggling. I am setting up a new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Regeneration & Development to help transform the prospects of the commercial property sector in the same way that the housing market has been transformed. Housing has led the way in generating ideas and overcoming obstacles, and now the rest of the property market needs to follow.
New thinking to tackle longstanding issues
We need new thinking by both business and government to solve longstanding challenges. Many of our high streets are degrading and risk creating a vicious cycle of urban decline. They have become places of convenience rather than places of aspiration.
What do we need to do? We need more ambitious developments which blend housing, office space, retail and leisure. We need to create more flexible office spaces and we need to encourage more people back into our town centres, to live, work and play.
We need to level the playing field for our high-street retailers so that they can compete fairly with online retail. We need to convert excess retail into residential or “last mile” warehousing, but maintain high standards for these conversions so that they are welcomed by local communities rather than resisted.
We need to blend pedestrian areas with transport in a way that facilitates easy access, road safety and low pollution. We need broader thinking and longer-term planning, which cuts across the public-private divide and which envisages vibrant spaces designed for people.
And finally, we need to be ready for complexity, because many of the developments we need most are sophisticated mixed-use developments involving many interlocking partners sharing spaces.
The UK has a remarkable history of solving problems and we can solve the problem of property; but only if we get our best minds together.
That is exactly what this APPG will do. When we launch next month, we will bring together a new group of parliamentarians who are pro-business and passionate about regeneration. We will connect these parliamentarians with a group of property industry leaders who are willing to think creatively about how we can solve the challenges of our towns.
Add into this mix, regular meetings with government ministers and advisers and you have a recipe for a group that will do fresh thinking and will come up with original proposals to make our towns and cities into the vibrant communities that we deserve.
The 11 months of “social-distancing” that we have endured during lockdown should make us all the more determined to embrace the full potential of our human need for community, once this time of difficulty is finally behind us, and the buildings that we construct and the social spaces that we create have a big part to play in this.
So, whether you are passionate about offices, retail, warehousing, leisure, housing, hotels or transport, we hope you will get involved. How can you get involved?
Sign up for our monthly newsletter here.
Take our property survey here.
Email me at info@regenerationappg.org.uk if you are interested in getting involved in the leadership of the APPG.
Gagan Mohindra is Member of Parliament for South West Hertfordshire.
Gagan Mohindra MP
All-Party Parliamentary Group for Regeneration & Development
Twitter: @RegenDevAPPG
