Banks’ failure to lend is the biggest block to development

The BCSC is right to call on the public and private sectors to take a more collaborative approach to planning.

Too often there has been a lack of communication that has slowed down planning applications and made the process more costly than it needs to be, and there is much to be done to make local authorities’ planning departments more efficient.

But while this has delayed many schemes over recent years, right now the main clog in the pipeline is not occurring as far down as the planning process or with the intricacies of Section 106 agreements — it is at the source.

Until banks begin to lend again, in the residential market as well as shopping centre development, there will be no pipeline to speak about.

What scuppered Trinity Walk in Wakefield, the highest profile scheme to come to a halt so far, was not the planning process but a fundamental problem of financing, and there are an alarming number of similar projects that could go the same way.

Suggestions from the BCSC such as rent holidays for new schemes and more innovative financing options are exactly what the industry needs to hear more of. There are weaknesses in the way regeneration projects are planned and carried out and the advice issued by the body last week goes to the heart of much of it.

But it would be overlooking the biggest threat to the future of shopping centre space and urban regeneration to think that were these guidelines followed, the pipeline could be unblocked.

The massively disabling effect of the freeze in banks’ lending is the first problem to address, and until this is dealt with the future of development remains very much in the balance.