The question hanging over the commercial property industry in Yorkshire is, what effect will the ending of the Yorkshire Forward RDA have on regeneration? Clearly reductions in regeneration are inevitable to accord with the tougher economic climate. That is the case in Bradford where the ambitious redevelopment of the Odeon site has been scaled back, as have projects in Grimsby, Scarborough and Rotherham. In many cases the return on schemes by the RDAs has been very favourable and a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that for every £1 spent by an RDA, regional economies benefited by £4.50, a figure which is increased substantially.
Another problem intrudes on the debate in the changes to planning laws. According to John Howell, Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Decentralisation, the coalition’s presumption in favour of sustainable development would be a thread running through the new planning system. Howell said that councils that failed to plan for new developments would be, “assumed to have a completely permissive planning system.” A developer could then build “what they like, where they like and when they like” provided they met new national planning guidance being worked up in tandem with the localism bill.
Howell suggests that this would give incentives to councils and his views have been welcomed by the British Property Federation. Where the RDAs are concerned, assets will be transferred or sold to a variety of organisations such as local authorities, local enterprise partnerships or central government (or even the private sector). In the view of Martin Farrington of Leeds City Council that might not favour regeneration. “We need to have controls and guarantees in place so we don’t lose the original economic purpose for securing the sites. If they were controlled by a body that did not share that vision, then it would set Leeds back years.” Clearly that would apply throughout Yorkshire. This could mean a number of visionary plans would not go ahead.
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