Technically, the UK’s next General Election must be held no later than 28th January 2025, but that’s a Tuesday and elections are always on Thursdays. Political commentators suggest the Conservatives will go for a November 2024 date, whilst the Labour Party has indicated it is ready for an even earlier election, perhaps as soon as next May. Either way, the prospect of voters going to the polls is a forceful political influence which dominated the recent Party Political Conferences and will escalate over the next few months.
Meanwhile, UKWA’s policy and public affairs team is going from strength to strength. We have a great track record of working successfully with interns and have a highly experienced policy team leader, Chris Seaton, who has now been joined by two new permanent members of staff too: Christopher who specialises in policy development and Ed who is working on stakeholder engagement. So, this year we had a stronger presence than ever at the Political Party Conferences.
The Political Party Conferences are a central part of the UK’s political calendar, when parliamentary activity is suspended to allow each party to gather its tribe, both for political decision-making and to build the knowledge of national and local politicians and their staff and supporters, about the key political issues of the day.
The Conservative Party Conference kicked off well for us, when Secretary of State, Michael Gove MP, publicly admitted at a fringe event on Day One that he ‘loves warehouses!’ in response to a question I asked him. A week or so later, at the Labour Party Conference, leader Keir Starmer listed ‘warehouses’ as an important type of development in his keynote speech.
In both cases, these senior political figures were referring to Planning policy. It is widely accepted that the process for getting planning permission is broken. Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves described it as ‘antiquated’, pointing out that since 2012, when the current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was first published, decision times for national infrastructure have increased by 65 percent, now taking four years on average. Some local applications take much longer and can result in perplexing decisions. For example, Kirklees Council recently rejected an Amazon warehouse project simply because local protestors opposed the development, even though it appeared to comply with their local plan. And it is a wasteful process too, often requiring hundreds of documents, as well as numerous meetings, resubmissions and public consultations.
Planning for property developments and energy infrastructure will be an election issue. And the acknowledgement of our sector by both the Conservative and Labour leadership, even fleetingly, is a sign that warehousing’s role in the economy is being recognised. UKWA will continue to expand its policy work, for the benefit of our members and the sector at large.
Clare Bottle
UKWA, CEO
Comments are closed.