Britain is redrawing the map for investment.
By Noah Khogali – Account Director
Major projects being developed today may ultimately be decided by institutions that don’t yet exist. For investors and developers, understanding where future political power will sit is becoming critical to deploying capital successfully.
Some of the development projects being promoted across England today will eventually be decided by councils that don’t yet exist.
Think about what that means for a site that may have taken years to assemble.
The councillors you know may no longer represent the same geography. The officers responsible for planning may sit within completely different teams. Local Plans may be operating beneath new strategic planning frameworks. And the route through which an application reaches a decision will itself have changed.
For developers and investors, England’s coming shake-up of local government isn’t simply an interesting constitutional reform.
It changes the stakeholder map around billions of pounds of investment.
Between now and April 2028, three changes will happen simultaneously.
Local Government Reorganisation will replace county and district councils across affected areas with new unitary authorities.
Devolution will strengthen the strategic tier, with mayors and strategic authorities playing a greater role in decisions about growth, infrastructure, transport and spatial planning.
And changes to the national scheme of delegation will alter which planning applications are decided by officers and which reach elected planning committees.
Individually, each is significant.
Together, they could fundamentally change where influence over a development project sits.
And investors and developers have an unusual problem.
Their projects move more slowly than the institutions deciding them.
A site being promoted today may not reach determination until after the political and administrative landscape around it has been completely redrawn.
So knowing who matters today is no longer enough.
Promoters increasingly need to understand who is likely to matter in two or three years’ time.
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Too often, housing and environmental protection are presented as competing priorities. This event will explore how we can deliver the homes people need while protecting and enhancing the natural environment.
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