Now is the time for action not just words

I am just back from three back-to-back days at the UKREiiF (UK Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum) conference where amongst others I listened to numerous Local Authorities, Disruptors and Developers talking about levelling up and the issues and challenges facing the industry. It was inspiring, thought provoking, challenging, and exhausting as thousands of us who work in the built environment gathered to discuss and debate issues including the levelling up agenda, the climate crisis and social value.

As I travelled back home from Leeds on Thursday , what crystallised in my mind was that I grew up in an area of deprivation in Grimsby that was desperate for good jobs, regeneration and hope for a better future. ?Many of the issues discussed are not new to us within the construction and property industry. Scratch that - many of these issues are not new to any of us working in industry full stop. We might have wrapped them up in a different language – localism or levelling up, climate change or net zero, social value or community spirited – but these are seismic issues that we are already on a journey of discovery and delivery with, not at the start of the solution, or unfortunately at the finishing line.

RLB’s Head of Place & Community, Gretta Starks, chaired a session on levelling up with speakers including Cllr Bev Craig, Mayor Martin Reeves, Nicola Somerville, Jon Walsh and Andrew Kerr OBE. Of course, the discussion led to how we bring more powers to local leaders to align to the social value act and regeneration bill. We have seen how Manchester has been given devolved power and how the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is successfully on this journey already and is rightly being seen as a beacon of localism for other councils and regions.

However, from a built environment industry point of view, even with devolution of power and funding to those close to the needs of those in their regions, the challenge still remains about how we close the gap between the ambition of how we level up and the capacity to deliver this equality. Capacity in terms of funding, capacity presently in terms of labour and materials and capacity in terms of those in local authorities having the time and space to strategically play for the future, rather than firefighting the here and now. As always when demand exceeds supply, capacity continues to drive priority and competition becomes rife. Which is what we are seeing right now in the construction sector – competition for talent, competition for materials, competition for funding – what can we do and not do – with limited budgets and resources.

It is in this context that the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH), with RLB’s Global Board Director, Ann Bentley, created the Value Toolkit, that gives a framework to prioritise projects according to key tenants whether cost, social value, environmental issues or timeframes. And one that often will ask the why as well as the what, and even the whether to build at all.

However, this doesn’t solve the levelling up agenda. Although it helps us prioritise some of the challenges that are ahead of us in levelling the regional playing field, it doesn’t help solve the long-term issue of capacity. So how do we do this?

Like many long-term challenges within our industry – they are evolving challenges. As I mentioned at the start of this piece, they might be badged differently but fundamentally they are issues that have been brewing for years and might take years to solve. What we need is collaboration, a long-term strategy. We need an apolitical, non-government led body that takes some of these challenges – such as the levelling up agenda, such as the climate crisis, such as the health and safety of our industry – and work with long term goals attached. We know that many of the industry bodies such as the CLC, the CIH and the CIC already undertake ground-breaking work in these areas, but we, as an industry, need to fund this independent body, for the longevity of our sector.

The people in the room over the last few days will be many of the people who help us on this journey, and I was delighted that I was part of that discussion, and hopefully with my colleagues at RLB, be part of the solution.