Two and half years ago I sat expectantly in the great hall of a Liverpool arena waiting for Angela Raynor to come on and deliver her party conference speech. Expectantly being the operative word because I was both eager and 16 weeks pregnant.

I was hoping she’d tell us that (if/when elected…) the Labour party would build more social housing.

And she did.

And…they are!

Or so says Rachel Reeves in her spending review announcement this week.

£39bn for a new 10-year affordable homes programme; £2.5bn in low interest loans for social housing providers; an additional 10 billion pounds for financial investments, including to be delivered through Homes England “to crowd in private investment”.

Lots of big numbers in there. Sounds very impressive and exciting. Are we convinced it’s going to shift the dial on the housing crisis? Of course we’re not.

None of the announcements appear to address the real issues facing our sector. A skills shortage, too much red tape in planning, inflated construction costs impacting viability, new regulatory hurdles, and not to mention the huge disconnect between the way our towns and cities are designed vs. the way people live and work in a post-Covid era.

Of course we welcome the money and we welcome the renewed focus on the housing crisis. But we don’t just need more money, we need a wholesale re-think about the way we tackle the problem!

In terms of other key headlines, I’m particularly interested in how some of the announcements will impact growth sectors for development.

It is clear that there will be a shortage of R&D and manufacturing facilities if we are to deliver on the defence, green energy and science and innovation ambitions of this government. Where are all these facilities going to go? And importantly – how are we going to motivate local communities to get behind this kind of development in their back yards.

With defence spending in mind as well – the MOD needs to be very careful to balance the narrative around a ‘boost’ to expenditure while continuing with their huge programme of redevelopment for sites which are no longer fit for purpose. We are privileged to support the DIO on a number of sites and we are already having to be on the front-foot with this message. 

My final comment is about what wasn’t mentioned in the spending review. London. Conspicuously absent from the announcements. It chimes with our experience as a business – the London market has got steadily drier over the past five years. But if I was a government relying on economic growth as the silver bullet to all our issues, I’m not sure I’d be accepting defeat on the capital city. I’d be seeing it as critical to the success of the execution of our plan.