To kick off the first sounding board meeting this year, we thanked our previous chair Selasi Setufe who briefly outlined the topics discussed in the previous year which included a wide range of topics centred around renting and home ownership - national model for design codes, changes to permitted development, sustainability, the pandemic and how we live work play in the city.  We welcomed both old and new members of this year’s cohort including the board’s new chair Jaffer Muljiani, a sustainability consultant from BDP.  

 

In this session, the board reviewed the government’s recently published Levelling up white paper which presents an ambitious, decade-long policy agenda to change the UK’s economic geography and narrow the country’s regional inequality.  This was discussed based on the 12 national mission statements all to be achieved by 2030. 

 

Whilst the agenda is welcomed and read as quite bold, the 12 missions were broken down through the session and the general concern was that there was a lack of substance and detail on how the statements would be practically applied.  The paper appears to be quite divisive in its terminology and potentially portrays London in a negative way.

 

As young professionals based or connected to London through their work, the board felt that levelling up should not necessarily be a replication of London, the national missions seems to make bold, sweeping statements with undertones that ‘one size fits all’.  Emily Wingrove welcomes the idea that the missions imply that support and funding is needed however, ‘Using London as the benchmark as the ultimate framework is wrong- we cannot assume that it’s going to work everywhere’ we envisage that towns should grow as smaller satellite cities and that levelling up should be more contextualised to specific areas to define what levelling up looks like rather than using London as its model. 

 

One of the biggest concerns raised in the meeting was funding.  The white paper seems to imply more funding will be allocated and as we are all aware that funding is needed in all areas of UK towns and cities, our highly centralised government needs to delve deeper into understanding the result of how key decisions that will be made impacts towns and cities on a regional level.  With potentially new bills prepared following this white paper, Rachel Meunier raises that ‘setting up frameworks for allocation of funding needs to allow for complexity’.  

There are concerns that although implied, there will in be in fact less funding available and therefore further review is required on if towns and cities will be capable of using funding effectively.  Do the local authorities have the right experts available to support this?  Whilst more funding does not necessarily equate to more risk, we are aware that local authorities are under resourced.  We have seen particular instances such as during the pandemic where in many towns and cities both the NHS and local authorities were very responsive In providing services, thus, it is very clear that if the local authorities have the appropriate financial backing, then towns and cities can flourish. 

 

The board raised some key issues centred around the housing crisis and pride of place, whilst the paper may make a bold statement of intent regarding home ownership ‘By 2030, renters will have a secure path to ownership with the number of first-time buyers increasing in all areas;..’ , both Selasi and Rachel expressed their concerns over the generational divide over home ownership and if it can be delivered.  Perhaps the government should explore alternative models of housing, how do different cultures do it?  

 

On a positive note, the white paper will provide potentially more opportunities for architects and designers to design with local authorities.  It will be interesting to see the paper develop and the  board would like to revisit this discussion next year to review what has been implemented.  

Jaffer Muljiani concluded all of our thoughts, ‘General ambition applauded - but devils in the detail and we don’t know the detail yet’.