A London-wide approach to investment

On Tuesday 18 July, key voices from across the built environment industry came together to discuss a London-wide approach to investment.

Convened under Chatham House rules, the session was an opportunity to share knowledge and experiences across the public and private sectors, identify barriers, and consider how to elevate London’s approach to attracting and securing trustworthy, responsible, long-term investment.

Contributors identified a number of key next steps for achieving this:

A joint message to the government:

• The government needs to provide certainty through legislation, policy, and regulation change.
• We should prepare a joint Opportunity London pitch outlining the minimum requirements that the public sector needs to provide to get set in investable propositions, and identify the critical things that need to be solved.
• Building on the great work already happening, we should identify 6 big opportunities in London and then pitch them to the government (energy, retrofit, etc).
• A collective pitch for devolution which will then give certainty to private sector investors.

Build trust with local authorities: The current system through planning is adversarial rather than collaborative. What mechanisms can we use to build trust?

A new model for ‘Best Value’: We need to break the cycle of procurement processes for local authorities to prove ‘Best Value’ and consider a new model for how local authorities deal with the requirement. Rather than solely Land Value, what measures could be used to demonstrate social and environmental value in order to overcome viability issues and share the risk of delivery in a more collaborative way?

‘Speak with one voice’: Through Opportunity London, develop a London narrative, rather than competing.

Getting the story right: Re-build London’s reputation as a good place to invest. Approach investors with realistic deliverable propositions, providing them with the policy context that the public sector can deliver with clearer planning and procurement.

London’s Narrative:

• The levelling up agenda has centred the focus on UK regional cities. The message that London is Open for Business needs to be communicated better.
• There is a case for compiling ‘The Business Case for London’ to set out ‘Why London’ to an investor audience. This could outline accessibility, talent infrastructure, governance, stability, transparency, education, centres of excellence and ESG commitments. Out of this, the investment propositions need to be developed with clear simple asks of the private sector that can be delivered by the public sector in an easily defined process.

Photography by Jason Hawkes.