The UK’s housing crisis is becoming impossible to separate from wider conversations around the future of towns and cities.
Councils are under mounting pressure from homelessness and temporary accommodation costs. Young people are increasingly locked out of home ownership in many areas. Housing delivery continues to fall short of demand. Competition between towns and cities for investment, jobs and talent is intensifying.
Against that backdrop, a growing number of regeneration leaders, developers, investors and local authorities are arriving at the same conclusion.
Building homes and infrastructure alone is no longer enough.
How places are perceived – by residents, investors, businesses and future generations – increasingly shapes whether regeneration succeeds at all.
That was the central theme emerging from a major roundtable hosted by Prolific North and Leeds-based marketing and strategy agency Cast Can during this year’s UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in Leeds.
The discussion 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, bringing together councils, housing associations, developers, planners, marketers and investors to discuss the future of regeneration, placemaking and housing delivery at an acute moment in the UK.
Over the next week, Prolific North and Cast Can will explore many of the themes raised during the discussion, including trust in regeneration, the rise of place branding, political volatility, inward investment, community engagement and what makes people actually want to live somewhere.
But the roundtable itself exposed a wider shift already reshaping regeneration conversations across the UK. Perception has become an economic issue in its own right.
“Perception actually impacts 37% of outside investment in a city,” said Lee Grasby, creative director at Cast Can. “That’s a staggering percentage.”
The invite-only roundtable discussion brought together senior figures from across the UK housing, regeneration and placemaking sectors, including representatives from Liverpool City Council, Bradford Council, Enfield Council, Slough Borough Council, Bruntwood, Gecko Homes, Share to Buy and I Want Plants.
Participants included Kate Bull, director of economy and skills at Liverpool City Council; Andrea Mills-Taylor, head of place marketing and investment at Bradford Council; Karen Page, director of planning and growth at Enfield Council; Daniel Ray, director of planning services and chief planning officer at Slough Borough Council; Josh Whiteley, commercial director at Bruntwood; Christina Tattersall, head of sales at Gecko Homes; Nick Lieb, COO at Share to Buy; as well as James Hamer, Lee Grasby and Callum Higginbottom from Cast Can.
What emerged repeatedly throughout the conversation was the growing importance of narrative, identity and trust in shaping the future of places.
Bradford discussed how its UK City of Culture year has become part of a much wider effort to reshape perceptions of the city and position it for long-term investment and growth.
“I think because we all had that mindset, we all had that belief in the future, that’s what will take us into the next decade,” Andrea Mills-Taylor said. “We’ve really rooted our identity now in the place itself and in the people and in the stories of our people.”
Slough, meanwhile, outlined efforts to rebuild its image around overlooked strengths including its role as a global data infrastructure hub and gateway economy linked to Heathrow and central London.
Liverpool spoke about the global recognition and pulling power of the Liverpool brand and the balance between city identity and wider regional collaboration, while Enfield highlighted the challenge of competing for investment while still lacking a clear and unified identity distinct from neighbouring parts of London.
Manchester inevitably hovered over the discussion too. For some participants, it remains the blueprint for ambitious regeneration and inward investment.
For others, it increasingly serves as a warning about affordability pressures, overdevelopment and the risk of growth becoming disconnected from community identity and quality of life.
Running through all of those conversations was a growing sense that the old rules around inward investment and regeneration marketing are beginning to break down.
Generic prospectuses and polished masterplans no longer carry the same weight they might have done in the past. Investors increasingly want stronger narratives around place, culture and long-term vision, while residents expect to feel involved in shaping the future of their communities rather than simply observing development happening around them.
“We’ve got to rip up the rulebook in terms of what we expect the inward investment brand to do,” said Cast Can managing director James Hamer.
Authenticity, trust and hyper-local identity surfaced repeatedly throughout the discussion.
Several participants warned against regeneration becoming disconnected from local people, particularly at a time when political volatility is reshaping councils and public trust in institutions remains fragile.
Dan Ray, director of planning services and chief planning officer at Slough Borough Council, acknowledged the challenge facing local authorities trying to rebuild confidence with residents.
“It doesn’t matter what we say until it starts to be delivered,” he said.
Kate Bull, director of economy and skills at Liverpool City Council, also highlighted the growing pressure on councils to prove regeneration is delivering meaningful change.
“I need proof that we have changed lives,” she said, underlining the stakes for councils.
That tension – between investment, growth, branding, trust and lived experience – increasingly sits at the heart of regeneration debates across the UK.
Because while cranes and construction still dominate the skyline, towns and cities are now competing just as aggressively on identity, perception and belief.
And the places cutting through are increasingly the ones telling stronger, more believable stories about who they are and who they want to become.
Tomorrow, in the second part of our Focus Week we examine the growing trust gap at the heart of UK regeneration – and why residents increasingly reject schemes they feel are being done to them rather than built with them.
