What Good Looks Like: Delivering Housing Through Public - Private Partnership

Welcome back to the Truth About Low Government podcast. I'm Matt Masters and today we're looking at how do we ensure good public sector, private sector partnerships to deliver housing and regeneration. And to dig into that question, I'm delighted to have Firas Beber, a dual qualified Chartered Severin town planner, someone who's got a very high profile nationally with a number of membership organisations and with local authorities across the country supporting developers to really seize the moment to seize the opportunity when it comes to development so firstly for us thank you so much for coming on today how are you yeah i'm good enjoying the british summertime weather it could not be more toasty but all really good thanks well thanks taking the time to come on so you you've worked across both local government and the private sector what's the biggest misconception each side has about each other well that's a really good question yes i have worked on both sides of the fence and I think the benefit of my background is I have worked both in local government whether it's at a county level or indeed across a number of London boroughs representing London with the mayor as well so having a really good insight of how both sides operate together with my private sector experience working in consultancy for the last 15 or plus years I think the there are misconceptions on both sides about how each side operates you know from the consultant developer side you know there's a there could be a feeling of you know is this uh how how active proactive and business-minded is local government you know is is a sort of preconceived notion that you can often hear about that i can never get hold of anyone in a local authority or you know uh we never really get the service we think we're paying for you know those sort of anecdotes are often held and conversely you know in the public sector lens it can often be you know cautious wariness about what the you know the outcomes are from what the the private sector is trying to drive and are they trying to pull the wool over our eyes and that sort of notion I guess you know looking back at both sort of what roles I've done in both sides actually I can say to you local government they're very hard working you know the idea that they're not is simply wrong they are dedicated staff that try to do the utmost for their council and their residents and conversely look on the consultant side you know they're working with clients they're working with clients to try and get the best outcome and the best opportunity that they can but the guardrails are the local authority and that's where we need to make sure that right balance between mutual beneficial outcomes are achieved.

And I wanted to dig in really into what good looks like but to do so I want to dig into the three case studies that you've been involved with, three really large and impressive schemes. Could you give a bit of a background context to those schemes before we dive into what good looks like please? Sure, so look I've been involved in a number of large-scale mixed-use residential schemes across the country and the The three sort of exemplars I want to sort of talk about is one which is in northwest London in a borough known to be very proactive towards development.

It was a former strategic industrial location of a site which had largely lost its way in terms of its ability to create an industrial use. Here, we look to bring together a large mixed use residential scheme of around 3000 homes, 35% affordable housing involved with that, £100 million worth of community infrastructure levy, planning taxes, receipts, Section 106 to improve, transport and highways, as well as other sort of services like a community centre and other provisions like a healthcare centre as well as retail.

And really a very high-level placemaking scheme, which effectively not just helped to regenerate that site, but also regenerate it with the lens of bringing in the benefits for the existing community as much as the new community. So that's a scheme I really want to sort of showcase as an example. Another is a former British steel site in the West Midlands, a site which was quite centred in a city, needed to have some sort of transformational effect to try and recreate what could be an opportunity not again just in its isolation but how does it bleed into the city And then the third one is more conventional but again demonstrates leadership about how one works against or with sorry local plan requirements to deliver against the strategic objectives of a new transport node, create some density of homes create some infrastructure social provision around uh schools and community center provision as well so again that's a very urban scheme i want to touch on and all have very different flavors of stakeholder relationships which i'd like to sort of touch on in the discussion well let's get into that stakeholder engagement piece and i guess from your perspective having worked on both sides the fence what good feels like to both sides when you're involved in a scheme obviously different schemes different complexities different elements but how do you manage stakeholders to achieve these outcomes which quite frankly not many people could deliver yeah really good question and and you know the magic dust really sits down to advocacy listening understanding what actually on a site-by-site basis are the needs requirements and, you know, the pressures for that area.

So if we take, for example, the first example that I said, the Northwest London site for 3,000 homes, the initial discussion actually was all about, you know, there's an opportunity here. The developer wanted to, had never worked in this particular authority, wanted to understand what the certainty of leadership and quality of leadership was like at a member level and also at an officer level. And, you know, really said, you know, in this case, you know, for us what what is it like to work in this particular borough are they open for business to do things in a proactive way and my experience was positive so I said look you know leader is front of foot very open very pro-minded and wants to make sure he can see transformation in his borough and has good quality officers to follow through and so that early conversation to understand the quality of the leader, the members, the officers was important.

And then linked to that was the importance to understand if a site was of this scale was to come forward, what were the priorities for the council? What did they want to see in order to see such a transformation take place? And things like affordable housing, priority number one, making sure there were the right community facilities for both the existing and new community, looking at ways to improve the placemaking, to create it as a place rather than just a housing estate. Those were sort of elements of an early discussion, which gave the confidence of a developer in this case, to put forward unconditionally, circa 80 to 100 million pounds of forward investment to acquire the site that is the that is the power of advocacy that if they can see there is a genuine open for business mindset developers will come in the belief that they can do business and put forward that level of investment without a piece of paper with a planning permission because they know what the guardrails are so just with that point because i think every local authority director of place every lead will be thinking i absolutely want that in my area for my residents what does it mean to be open for business it's showing clearly what the expectations are as one then sorts to bring forward a master plan scheme so does it have the necessary social infrastructure that the council is seeking to achieve and what is it let's be clear about it let's not change the rules as we go down the line let's be clear from the outset what is it they need to see derived from that scene and are they prepared to see that through the journey from start to finish that means dealing with perhaps difficult conversations where they need to have those but also showing the benefit of what can happen and of course the other link to that which I should say is as you do these large-scale schemes is bringing the community with you so not making it carte blanche that you've just taken a view but then you may pivot in that journey of master planning and delivery to make sure you're accounting for things that you may not have.

But the key is confidence that actually the leadership will play their part in that planning and development process. You get that confidence and you can see the follow through with good quality officers that are also very clear on what their mandate is on behalf of their elected members that where the want of a better word the the partnership derives the the outcomes that i'm talking about and actually it's really interesting you talk about that word partnership because actually it's a theme that is for me at the moment having been involved with a number of senior hires in the last uh two months it's one of the themes which i think is absolutely current is absolutely relevant across local government now we've talked about being open for business are there any piece of advice you would give around behaviors activities to avoid doing if you are looking as a local authority to partner with developers in order to to bring forward schemes and to actually unlock play shape potential i think it's less about avoiding but understanding what the parameters of engagement should look like you are not going into a local authority to get a stamp of approval without the due process but what you are trying to do is engage with local authorities to understand you know how can you play a role on sites that you have an interest in and I suppose you know if we take the other example which is in the West Midlands when my client originally engaged with the local authority on that scheme perhaps they didn't engage in the way they should have and so when they first had an approach to try and do something they didn't get through the gate because they hadn't quite understood what that opportunity should look like on behalf of the lens of the local authority and and you know my advice to the client would look get placemaking at the heart of what you're doing get the destination as part of what you're trying to achieve it's a very central location and then think about that housing mix, the density, the scale, what that quantum should look like, and then what that place should be as a part of a wider master plan.

And then going back to the drawing board, which is what they then did to build in those factors, and then remake the case that actually, having recasted and thought through a little bit more about how that bleeds into the city, city centre, that received a much more positive response as it went through the procurement process and today I can say to you that scheme is being built and I think at first phase it's already sold out you know before the site has even been fully built at such as the excitement that that scheme has now attracted for the city centre.

So the key really is not presuming things or not trying to just look at it as a balance sheet or appraisal sheet but looking at it as a place first and foremost the buildings will come the design of the articulation of the buildings will come but actually it's about those open spaces the place making the the feeling that you will actually create a destination actually the design of the buildings the density of the buildings the scale of the buildings that is almost dare i say the second part of the puzzle so it's understanding that that um that genesis of how you create these large-scale regeneration schemes absolutely and i think look being honest as well here the reason that works you had the you had the knowledge and you had the uh the the uh what i'm looking for here you had the integrity to be able to say to the developer that what you put forward isn't good enough really think about the place and then when you did and they came back and done that you've now done one of the most impressive schemes in the west midlands for a very long time so there is absolutely i understand the the linchpin that you are in terms of the almost the interface between between these two obviously interconnecting pieces of the puzzle um what's the biggest blocker right now to delivering more impressive schemes like the ones that you've talked about that we're in a difficult place.

The nature of the market is such that there is still the drive to deliver very high quality placemaking schemes, but the market is one which at the moment isn't delivering the ability to do so. And there's a cumulative set of reasons around that. A lot of will be said around the viability of schemes and you know government and local governments are trying to do their utmost to find ways in which to provide grant to help underpin schemes but the reality is the consumer confidence side of things is also a challenge in trying to get buyers to buy homes notwithstanding for the right place the right price and the right environment that can still happen I think the key right now is making sure that wherever developers are wanting to do business there is an appetite to looking at doing it And some places will have a very clear up-to-date local plan, and it will be very clear what they want to achieve.

In other areas, there are no up-to-date local plans. And what we're seeing is, in some cases, speculative applications going forward which in a sense then creates that that feeling of mistrust because you're starting to see some applications coming forward where no development has been earmarked for but yet because there's no local plan in place what's happening is I won't say adversarial but they're testing the planning system to take those applications to appeal so there is this sort of quagmire of challenge going on where we're seeing local authorities that haven't done their homework to get their local plans in place being tested and that's largely because as we all know there is a huge housing need and the government are are trailing the need to to get sites coming forward and if they're non-determined they will be potentially taken over by the Secretary of State or indeed in London by the mayor.

So there is an edge at the moment in the environment that we're working in. And do you think the recent central government changes in terms of just the figures at the top of the tree, do you see that having any impact in terms of the ability to deliver or the ability to be ambitious, both as local authorities or developers in place shaping? it's it's an interesting question because it's multi-layered um certainly the government are doing their utmost to try and provide the market with certainty on decision making and they've made some planning changes that are driving towards that element we know there's a huge ambition for the new towns uh ideology that's been sort of well trailed and uh some will be looking to charge ahead now that the local elections are out of the way and others will be slightly forced because of the local election results which have looked to try and pause those opportunities so again there's a mixed result the key really to see that acceleration if we take the new towns is a real commitment by I'm going to use the word big government as opposed to local government to help provide the forward fund investment for local government to drive forward the infrastructure to get those new towns up and running.

That in itself will then drive the market towards delivering around it in terms of the private sector investment. So there's a real opportunity here for government to actually look if economic growth is the priority, putting forward that infrastructure funding at a local level.