Avison Young’s Manchester planning team held a half day briefing on Friday 7 June at the Bridgewater Hall. With over 150 attendees, the event largely explored the challenges facing the housing sector today, as well as touching on challenges facing town centres.

Chaired by Avison Young Principal, Gary Halman, the keynote address came from Lord Kerslake, former Permanent Secretary at DCLG and latterly Head of the Home Civil Service. Presentations followed from Nick Walkley, chief executive of Homes England; Steve Quartermain CBE, chief planner, MHCLG; Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford and Greater Manchester Strategic Framework lead; Morag Ellis QC from Francis Taylor Building Chambers, and Andrew Whitaker, planning director, Home Builders Federation.

As you would expect, housing was at the top of the agenda for much of the morning. Interestingly, Lord Kerslake opened with a positive comment in relation to BREXIT, saying that the housing market has proved remarkably resilient. New housing supply has returned and is now ahead of its peak, pre-crash, but he went on to raise two key challenges; that despite supply increasing, we are still four million homes short of target, as well as the growing and real shortage of skills in the sector.

Nick Walkley introduced the profound challenge of the affordability crisis, stressing that there is a clear problem with affordability across the country, which is far more complex that the North-South divide. He outlined the many problems attributing to this, which means that there is no one solution to the housing crisis but instead it requires intervention across the industry on multiple levels.

Homes England’s mission is to intervene in the market to ensure more homes are built in areas of greatest need, to improve affordability and it promises to make this sustainable by creating a more resilient and diverse housing market.Its key objectives are to unlock public and private land where the market will not, to get more homes built where they are needed; ensure that a range of investment products are available to support housebuilding and infrastructure; improve construction productivity and create a more resilient, competitive market by supporting smaller builders and new entrants, and promoting better design and higher quality homes.

Gary closed the morning with an ‘in conversation’ discussion around the reimagination of town centres, with Nick Johnson from Market Operations Ltd., the mastermind behind the success of Altrincham Market and Mackie Mayor in Manchester.

Gary Halman said of the Briefing, “What a fascinating morning, we really covered some ground, from BREXIT, infrastructure and affordability, to partnerships, placemaking and people. We’ve had great feedback from those that attended.”