Regeneration conversations have long been dominated by economics, infrastructure and growth targets. Increasingly though, councils, developers and placemaking leaders are confronting a more difficult question altogether – what actually makes people want to build a life somewhere?
That question surfaced repeatedly during Prolific North and Cast Can’s regeneration and placemaking roundtable at UKREiiF in Leeds, where councils, developers and placemaking leaders returned again and again to the growing importance of liveability, identity and human experience in shaping successful places.
Because while regeneration still often gets discussed through the language of delivery and investment, residents experience places much more personally.
And increasingly, that feeling shapes everything from investment confidence and talent attraction through to civic pride, retention and long-term growth.
The roundtable formed part of The Great Housing Development Summit, a three-day programme hosted by The Housing & Development Network (H&DN), The National Sales Group (NSG) and Cast Can, and brought together local authorities, housing organisations, planners, developers and marketers from across the UK.
In the fourth part of our focus week on brand, placemaking and investment in UK housing, we explore one of the strongest themes emerging from the discussion – the nuance between regeneration designed around short-term viability and regeneration designed around long-term liveability.
James Hamer, managing director at Cast Can, argued that parts of the industry still too often prioritise density and commercial return ahead of how people actually experience places day to day.
“We have to think about how people live,” he said. “That’s the essence of everything at the end of the day.”
The tension at the heart of the question surfaced during conversations around Manchester, which hovered over much of the discussion both as a model for large-scale regeneration and as a warning about the pressures rapid growth can create.
Participants discussed concerns around overdevelopment, affordability pressures and whether some city-centre regeneration risks becoming disconnected from the communities surrounding it.
Liverpool City Council’s Kate Bull acknowledged that cities increasingly have to think more carefully about the kind of growth they actually want to create.
“We purposely took a very different stance to Manchester,” she said, pointing to Liverpool’s decision to protect parts of its historic core and limit tall buildings within certain parts of the city centre.
She admitted that approach may at times have limited Liverpool’s pace of commercial growth compared with Manchester, particularly around Grade A office space, but argued it had also protected parts of the city’s identity and waterfront character.
That broader conversation around identity, distinctiveness and emotional connection surfaced repeatedly throughout the roundtable.
Josh Whiteley, commercial director at Bruntwood SciTech, argued that successful placemaking increasingly depends on understanding and amplifying what already matters to local communities rather than imposing generic development models onto places.
“We’ll go hyper-focused on local elements,” he said.
He described how developments increasingly retain historic names, local stories and neighbourhood identity within regeneration schemes, arguing that people themselves increasingly sit at the centre of successful economic growth conversations.
“People are the most important part of the economy in those places,” he said.
That emphasis on emotional connection and lived experience extended beyond branding and into physical design too.
Participants repeatedly questioned whether too many UK developments still prioritise maximum density over the realities of how people actually want to live.
During one part of the discussion, James Hamer referenced Vienna’s widely admired social housing model, where extensive consultation and integrated community infrastructure have helped create neighbourhoods designed around long-term quality of life rather than simply housing numbers.
“How in Vienna can they get it so right?” he asked. “They’ve got everything. Community leisure centres built into apartment blocks, sauna steam rooms, gyms, indoor football pitches, outdoor table tennis. All of these things.”
For him, one of the key differences is that residents are often involved far earlier in shaping developments themselves, helping create places that feel rooted in real daily experience rather than imposed from above.
“That then creates community,” he said.
The discussion returned to the idea that placemaking increasingly relies on legacy rather than simply delivery.
Lee Grasby, creative director at Cast Can, argued that regeneration should ultimately be judged by whether it creates places people feel attached to long after construction ends.
“You’re trying to create a legacy rather than just chuck some houses up and move on,” he said.
That philosophy shapes how some socially-conscious developers think about regeneration too.
Nick Lamb, COO at I Want Plants, pointed to Bruntwood’s Foundation building in Altrincham as an example of regeneration designed around wider social and environmental impact rather than simply commercial return, with green infrastructure and public realm playing a major role in reshaping perceptions of part of the town centre.
Throughout the discussion, participants returned to the idea that successful places increasingly need to feel human, distinctive and believable.
Andrea Mills-Taylor, head of place marketing and investment at Bradford Council, described how Bradford’s wider regeneration strategy has leaned heavily into culture, identity and civic belief rather than simply physical transformation.
“We’ve really rooted our identity now in the place itself and in the people and in the stories of our people,” she said in the roundtable discussion.
Tomorrow, Prolific North and Cast Can conclude the Focus Week by examining where the regeneration conversation heads next – and how political volatility, public trust and changing expectations could reshape placemaking over the next decade.
