A successful partnership has many benefits

The Autumn Statement has been and gone and from a housing perspective the detail was already known about the creation of funds to invest in housing. So all good on that front.

But under the skin of it all is a housing market that needs stimulating and although the measures announced in the budget provide a certain level of stimuli there is a great need, to me, for more partnerships to be formed to really help deliver longer term housing growth. Why partnerships? Well some schemes that need to be and can be delivered are long term and usually involved the public sector who simply do not have the resource to deliver, what they do have though is land and an ability to work with the community to deliver.

The Government's Housing and Planning Bill, following on from the National Planning and Policy

Framework reflects “a commitment and strategy to deliver a step change in housing delivery in building new homes in the UK and alleviating the housing crisis”. So what can prevent this occurring, well quite frankly a lack of resource – particularly housing associations and local authorities – which are the key to unlocking significantly higher housing growth.

So how could it work – well you take (a) private housebuilder with labour and materials and (b) a local authority with land in areas needing regenerating = (c) a regenerated city with more affordable housing – see, simple as “a + b = c”. But you can’t simply create a partnership – you need crate something that will survive and thrive.

The key to success for a partnership is having shared objectives and working to achieve these objectives and that means:

·        Leadership is needed by all parties involved to deliver the vision;

·        A shared vision is needed to engage the parties involved, bring in the community together and above all it supports each other’s values, this in itself creates a long-term, robust plan. Imagine a partnership that has the goal of regenerating a local area, this could take decades therefore needs the early vision’

·        Due to the timeframe of delivery then needs to be an embracement of the bad times as over the life there will be the cycle of the market. Hold the nerve and plan this into the budget, or even better seek to take advantage of the cycle; and

·        Constant communication and transparency in those communications. Private and public sectors have differing objectives and therefore there needs to be an acceptance that the public sector may be more risk adverse –by keeping good transparent dialogue will help the partnership bond.

The outcome to a true partnership can be something unique. I have visited many cities in my life and you always remember certain parts of each of them – to me seeing the regeneration of my home city, Sheffield, brings feelings of hope and prosperity but also patience, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” springs to mind! The outcome is something the public and private sector can look back on and feel proud to have achieved but also the community look forward to the possibilities it will help them achieve.

We need to reflect that “real assets” impact us all. They are where we work, live, play and learn and therefore each of us has a desire to create the best space to achieve this. Bringing the best of both worlds together can really help unlock the potential of some of our regional cities and create spaces that attract the best businesses’ and the best people.

 

Enjoy the rest of the week and a always any comments on the blog are greatly received.

 

Thanks

 

Lee

 

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