London Property Alliance (CPA + WPA) attended the 2021 Conservative and Labour Party conferences in Manchester and Brighton respectively.
Our engagement activities, including private roundtables discussions, and meetings with politicians were focused on making the case for central London.
The London Property Alliance roundtables (hosted in partnership with Sheffield Property Association) explored the role of transport connectivity in addressing inequality within and between the UK’s city regions. Attendees agreed that London had some of the most deprived areas of the country which needed investment, and that levelling up should be about helping to spread social and economic prosperity across all parts of the country, including the capital.
Our Conservative roundtable also suggested Tax Incremental Financing (TIF), which was used to good effect for the new Northern Line extension at Battersea Power Station: a model which could prove effective to help provide infrastructure funding elsewhere.
During our roundtables and discussions we produced evidence from our own research City Region Connectivity around the need for continued investment in London and all regions to support the levelling up agenda.
The desire for greater devolution to enable local areas to plan and finance their own needs, with national support and expertise pulled in from all parts of the country, was a major theme of our research and party conference activities.