It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Rob Woolston, Director at rg+p, the multi-disciplinary design practice.
Earlier this year, someone told me that “2024 is a year to get through” before things started moving in 2025. This has certainly been the case. While 2024 has brought political stability, and elevated new homes to the top of the agenda, the property sector still awaits meaningful action.
Two triggers to kickstart 2025 positively are:
- The NPPF Update – which arrived as promised on 12th December, this has brought clarity on some of the government’s headline manifesto statements. Housing targets have been reintroduced; the definition of grey belt land is set out; the reintroduction of regional spatial strategies; and there is a requirement for Local Authorities to have an up-to-date Local Plan completed within a set time period. All of which will help provide more context and direction for preparing, submitting and ultimately, determining planning applications during 2025.
- Affordable Housing Boost – the Spring Spending Review must deliver a significant financial programme and long-term rent settlement for affordable housing providers to give them the confidence to raise investment capital and commit to future development. This needs to come with a quick mechanism to put any new programme in place and should prioritise social rent schemes which have been identified as key to the delivery of the pledged 1.5m new homes.
Alongside these, the housebuilding industry must contend with the increase in stamp duty, which will place further pressures on private housebuilders who are already facing a tough market following an anti-growth Budget that reduced the potential for any further short-term interest rate cuts.
While this might sound pessimistic, the simple fact is within their first six months, the government has failed to deliver the boost the industry so desperately needs. We now have a stable political position, which will provide investor confidence, but urgently need the policies and funding to move development forward.
I think 2025 is best described as a game of two halves. The first will be the frustrating wait for the actions I outline above, and the second, I hope, will be the noticeable uptick in activity that will go on to deliver against those ambitious promises.
