Listening to Richard Lim from Retail Economics, our opening speaker at the recent UKWA 2025 conference, was a sobering experience. He spoke of how consumer confidence remains shaky, with the personal finances of low and middle earners not improving much over the last five years.
This tallies with reports I have heard recently from some UKWA members of customers sitting on their hands: plenty of enquiries seem to be coming in, but then only very slowly turning into sales.
Before you accuse me of being too gloomy (I realise my last piece in this briefing focused on the weak state of the public finances), this is clearly only part of the picture. Indeed, despite a lack of general economic optimism, and additional costs from national insurance, members I have spoken to say they intend to continue with their investment plans as before.
Part of this comes from the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards regulations – which mean commercial rented properties have to reach a minimum EPC rating of B by 2030 – but I also hear developers and occupiers still actively pursuing new sites and looking for more space.
The bottleneck here doesn’t seem to be capital so much as that perennial issue: planning. For many members it feels like sites for warehouses will always be at the bottom of the list in many councils’ plans, if they’re not actively opposed.
There may be a speck of light at the end of the tunnel, however.
Since being elected last summer, the Government has made a string of announcements on planning, and finally, on the 11th March, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill was introduced to Parliament.
Joshua has more detail on what is in the Bill in his section of this policy briefing, but perhaps the most interesting element for me is the suggestion that more planning decisions in future will be taken by trained planning officers, rather than committees of the council. The Secretary of State will even have power to limit the size of planning committees to stop them becoming ‘unwieldy’.
The Bill is just beginning its journey through Parliament, and there will likely be opposition on the grounds of reduced local decision-making. But the economy is fragile, and the planning system currently creates far too much uncertainty and delay. If the Government is serious about growth, they have to stick to their guns.
If you have anything you would like to share about planning, or your interactions with government in any other area (good or bad), I’m always keen to hear about your experiences – Edwin.morgan@ukwa.org.uk