DEVELOPMENT & PLACE

Improving politicians’ understanding of the context withinwhich commercial real estate sits and the value it contributes both economically and socially is a huge challenge for all of us. As retail property and placemaking organisation Revo celebrates its 35th birthday this year inManchester chief executive Ed Cooke outlines the key issues facing the industry, talks us through what he considers to be the biggest challenge of the 2020s and explains his fondness for urban trekking. With so many issues currently facing the retail property industry, what comes top of the list for Revo? It has to be Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVA) reform. We recently provided a written briefing for Ministers at key departments for us, MHCLG and BEIS. We have also been lobbying the HCLG Select Committee, and hope to give Oral Evidence at its Inquiry into the retail sector in September. So do you think you are gaining traction? The reality is that there’s very little parliamentary time or indeed capacity within the civil service to have detailed conversations about this subject at the moment, given howmuch time Brexit is taking up. But we live in hope! When you do get the ear of senior politicians do they appreciate why change is needed? Improving politicians’ understanding of the context within which commercial real estate sits and the value it contributes both economically and socially is a huge challenge for all of us and to be quite frank I don’t think any of us have been good enough at that. We need to be better at communicating the benefits it brings to citizens, businesses and to government itself. Ed Cooke Chief Executive, Revo INTERVIEW CONTEMPORARY CAMPAIGNER And what else is Revo currently campaigning on? Business rates, which we’ve been working on with other campaign groups for some time. In this case senior politicians have absolutely recognised the problem. The issue is their inability or unwillingness to do much about it. To be fair, they have instituted some changes. Yes, they’ve made some significant concessions that shouldn’t be sneered at. But the fact is that business rates in total are set to increase by £2bn in the next two years. Our standpoint is that the overall figure needs to fall, though we are also keen to protect local authorities from any significant reduction in tax revenues. 34 35 CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD DEVELOPMENT & PLACE