You might have noticed that for only the second time in my working life, I've had a business engagement outside the UK this week. I was asked to talk about the role of social housing in the recovery and sustainability of Real Estate Markets at the United Nations in Geneva this week - and it's the kind of offer that you just don't turn down!
If you now have an image in your mind of grand state rooms within which eloquent and rigorous debate results in consensus building at the highest level, I'm sure that was going on somewhere, for the buildings were indeed very grand. Our little corner of the UN was however, slightly more prosaic and at the end of the day, the debates were slightly less conclusive and to some extent were left hanging in the air. And, as it also took me (and quite a few others too including one charming woman lobbying on behalf of human rights abuses in Eritrea) more than an hour and a half to get through security because "my name wasn't on the list", I can confirm that the UN is also a huge bureaucracy!
Nonetheless it was a fascinating opportunity to hear first-hand from a series of experts about problems in Real Estate Markets in hugely diverse countries. The part of the UN that put on the session, only covers Europe, but their definition of that geography bears no relation to anything I ever studied for my degree. For them, Europe includes the whole of North America, "Europe" as it is more conventionally understood, the ex-soviet block countries in transition like Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, as well as the monolith of Russia itself. Immediately you can see the enormity of the task of arriving at a set of unifying principles which can apply across such physically, politically and economically diverse terrain. That they managed to produce a policy framework at all is pretty surprising!
Everyone seemed to have pretty much a common vision for what a sustainable Real Estate Market looked like, with the tests of affordability for all, environmental impact and community cohesion being universal. But clearly starting points for different countries varied enormously. I suppose that was my first thought - that in the UK, it might not seem like it at the moment, but we are pretty well off. Not for us, the complete absence of any written land ownership records, which is the case in some countries, or the corrupt and untrusted records that exist in others. Our markets may have their problems, but the uncertain provenance of land and buildings, generally, isn't one of them.
My presentation (that link should show you mine and all the other presentations made during the day) focused on the unique role that social housing, and social housing providers could make. I used the example of the Old Trafford Masterplan - a partnership between THT and Trafford Council, to show how housing associations, with their long-term interests in an area and their focus on social as well as economic value, can take developments forward at a time when others can't or won't, thereby creating the conditions which enable the private sector to follow in behind.
I spoke also about how we take into account the housing needs of the whole community rather than only those of the people who are able to pay; how we are not as influenced by the changing winds of national and local politics as local government are, and (at least for now!) how we have access to national and local government subsidy, whether that's in the form of loans, grants or land, as well as the ability to attract private investment. Most of all though, we can play that role of developing markets because we care about People as well as Properties & Profit. If you want to see the whole of what I said it's available here.
So where did the experience leave me? You know what, we are so fortunate we should get on and do what we can, rather than keep whinging about what we can't. And where did it leave them? Well, at least they all now know that Manchester United FC is based in Trafford, and not Manchester. Did you?
If you now have an image in your mind of grand state rooms within which eloquent and rigorous debate results in consensus building at the highest level, I'm sure that was going on somewhere, for the buildings were indeed very grand. Our little corner of the UN was however, slightly more prosaic and at the end of the day, the debates were slightly less conclusive and to some extent were left hanging in the air. And, as it also took me (and quite a few others too including one charming woman lobbying on behalf of human rights abuses in Eritrea) more than an hour and a half to get through security because "my name wasn't on the list", I can confirm that the UN is also a huge bureaucracy!
Nonetheless it was a fascinating opportunity to hear first-hand from a series of experts about problems in Real Estate Markets in hugely diverse countries. The part of the UN that put on the session, only covers Europe, but their definition of that geography bears no relation to anything I ever studied for my degree. For them, Europe includes the whole of North America, "Europe" as it is more conventionally understood, the ex-soviet block countries in transition like Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, as well as the monolith of Russia itself. Immediately you can see the enormity of the task of arriving at a set of unifying principles which can apply across such physically, politically and economically diverse terrain. That they managed to produce a policy framework at all is pretty surprising!
Everyone seemed to have pretty much a common vision for what a sustainable Real Estate Market looked like, with the tests of affordability for all, environmental impact and community cohesion being universal. But clearly starting points for different countries varied enormously. I suppose that was my first thought - that in the UK, it might not seem like it at the moment, but we are pretty well off. Not for us, the complete absence of any written land ownership records, which is the case in some countries, or the corrupt and untrusted records that exist in others. Our markets may have their problems, but the uncertain provenance of land and buildings, generally, isn't one of them.
My presentation (that link should show you mine and all the other presentations made during the day) focused on the unique role that social housing, and social housing providers could make. I used the example of the Old Trafford Masterplan - a partnership between THT and Trafford Council, to show how housing associations, with their long-term interests in an area and their focus on social as well as economic value, can take developments forward at a time when others can't or won't, thereby creating the conditions which enable the private sector to follow in behind.
I spoke also about how we take into account the housing needs of the whole community rather than only those of the people who are able to pay; how we are not as influenced by the changing winds of national and local politics as local government are, and (at least for now!) how we have access to national and local government subsidy, whether that's in the form of loans, grants or land, as well as the ability to attract private investment. Most of all though, we can play that role of developing markets because we care about People as well as Properties & Profit. If you want to see the whole of what I said it's available here.
So where did the experience leave me? You know what, we are so fortunate we should get on and do what we can, rather than keep whinging about what we can't. And where did it leave them? Well, at least they all now know that Manchester United FC is based in Trafford, and not Manchester. Did you?
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