We explore the economic case for regeneration and outline three key areas that can help to get deals done and accelerate progress.
Read moreRegeneration is about more than bricks and mortar — it’s breathing life into communities, creating opportunities and shaping the future of our towns and cities. With the UK facing a chronic undersupply of housing and town centres suffering from closures, regeneration offers a compelling solution — reviving underused brownfield sites, unlocking growth and creating sustainable places that are fit for the future.
Here, our Head of Real Estate Iain Gamble explores the economic case for regeneration and outlines three key areas that can help to get deals done and accelerate progress.
The economic case for regeneration
There’s a strong economic case for regeneration. The Centre for Cities revealed that on average, every £1 invested by the public sector in regeneration leads to £5 of private investment. Public investment can remove barriers to the viability of developments that arise from market conditions or site conditions on under-used brownfield land.
Meanwhile, research by Development Economics suggests that unlocking brownfield urban regeneration could deliver over a million new jobs and 1.3m new homes by 2035. The Government has made housing a key priority, vowing to deliver 1.5m homes in five years.
While a challenging target, it’s clear that constructing residential buildings and homes is a key growth driver that won’t just create more jobs in the construction industry but also attract businesses to relocate or open in newly regenerated urban spaces, creating more jobs in the surrounding areas.
However, regeneration isn’t all about the economic picture. When delivered in the right way, it can also improve social outcomes and provide greater access to healthcare, education and better standards of living. In short, it can transform neglected areas into places where vibrant communities can thrive and people are proud to live.
The obstacles to regeneration projects
While regeneration has the potential to unlock prosperity for the whole of the UK, individual projects are rarely easy to deliver. Considerable obstacles get in the way of delivering on opportunities — from construction cost inflation and viability issues to evolving statutory requirements, planning complexities and labour and skills shortages. Geography also plays a role, since it’s traditionally even more difficult to attract investment to less affluent or more deprived regions across the UK when compared to more ‘established’ city regions.
Of course, many of these obstacles are outside the direct control of the developers, funders and public authorities seeking to drive regeneration in their local areas. Developers and stakeholders are therefore left needing to maximise every opportunity to make regeneration projects happen, where they have the influence and ability to do so. That means they need the right partners, including a trusted legal partner that can cut through complexity and drive things forward. This requires more than just legal expertise — it takes pace, precision and purpose.
1. The need for pace
Regeneration isn’t a short process. It requires long-term commitment to see through a planned scheme and deliver on its promise. However, if not managed properly, timescales can drift and specific workstreams won’t happen as fast as they ought to.
Our approach is focused on helping all parties to keep projects moving and on track. Where something is in our control, we push it forward and drive the momentum. We demonstrated what pace looks like in practice when Oldham Council approached us to support its town centre revival. We supported the Council with devising the process and once launched, we managed to conclude the detailed legal dialogue in just seven months by working with the Council and CBRE — an exceptional timeframe for a scheme of this scale and complexity.
Our role was to advise on procurement and the legal aspects, ensuring that all parties involved in the dialogue stuck to the timetable. Along the way, we made sure to understand the expected roles and drivers of both the internal client team and external commercial advisers and then worked together as one cohesive project team — with our regeneration experts firmly embedded within it.
This helped to accelerate the appointment of the successful developer, Muse Places and opened the route to achieve its goal of delivering 2,000 new mixed-tenure homes as part of this major regeneration project, which is expected to bring millions of pounds of investment to the town.
2. The power of precision
Local authorities, developers, funders and communities each bring different priorities and competing interests to the table — and that diversity of perspective is just part of the puzzle. Our job is to help align them. Rather than adding complexity, we bring clarity and cohesion, taking into consideration the interests of all stakeholders involved in the project.
Our lawyers work side-by-side with planning and construction consultants and other specialists from day one, helping to shape shared strategies. We use our legal expertise to navigate complex sites and legal development structures, providing solutions rather than issues.
We pride ourselves on having in-depth knowledge of the sites that we work on. These are often places where we’ve been involved for a long period of time, such as Liverpool Waters, where we’ve worked with our client Peel Waters since 2011. We use that knowledge to anticipate risks and get ahead of them.
Similarly, when advising on the regeneration of Mell Square in Solihull, our team supported the developer to structure a delivery model that would attract private sector investment while protecting long-term community value and balancing the interests of the Council. Precision here meant more than attention to legal detail. It meant safeguarding viability and vision through each stage of legal delivery while simultaneously acknowledging the objectives of the Council.
3. The importance of purpose
That long-term vision matters because regeneration isn’t just about reshaping places — it’s about improving lives. This purpose drives our work in delivering transformative projects that revitalise neighbourhoods, attract and drive investment and create sustainable places for the future.
For us, regeneration is a natural extension of our wider mission to make the difference. As a certified B Corp and purpose-led firm that has been rooted in local communities for over 200 years, we believe in being stewards of something bigger. Our aim is to leave places better than we found them.
Achieving that goal requires — above all else — collaboration and alignment. Between developers and public bodies to leverage their respective skills. Between different consultant disciplines to jointly chart a path through complex matters. Between different towns and cities so that they become greater than the sum of their parts and can work together to attract investment and infrastructure.
The time is now
The time for regeneration to become a key driver of UK economic success is now. We look forward to being a part of making that happen.
Find out more about how we make places work.
Get in touch with the team at regeneration@brabners.com, call us on 0333 004 4488 or complete our contact form below.
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