The Enabling Client - 5 Tips for Success
The Challenge
Local Authority clients frequently want to unlock strategic sites within their area of influence that are owned by others or, partially owned by themselves. Motivations vary from meeting housing requirements, providing a catalyst for town centre regeneration or facilitating the redevelopment of underutilised lands in prominent locations.
It can be a challenging ambition, particularly when there isn’t outright ownership or, capacity and resources internally to realise it. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t options available. Proactive clients can achieve positive results by adopting an ‘enabling client’ approach that leverages their offering to facilitate and promote development instead.
Having supported various Local Government clients in this arrangement to unlock complex sites, attract funding and kick-start town centre regeneration, this post provides 5 tried and tested action points to use the strategy successfully.
1. Identify what you bring as a Local Authority
Perhaps there is access to funding opportunities, support from senior leadership and politicians, potential to align with Local Plan policies or opportunity to market the site from an economic development perspective?
Sharing what's happening on existing projects and programmes can also be worthwhile to build trust and credibility. Where is the Local Authority already investing and what is the expected impact?
Also know why you care about this site proposition, and why others should too. Perhaps Council's social and environmental objectives or its housing requirements are areas of overlap where you can help others meet their objectives too?
2. Leadership
Having a credible Senior Officer at the helm is imperative. They need to be consistent and have a clear mandate corporately and politically for initial conversations, and the long run.
Establishing and maintaining regular meeting cycles with primary stakeholders builds relationships and makes discussions on vision, objectives, challenges and next steps easier. This is particularly important when things slow down as a way to maintain focus and enthusiasm for the opportunity. And they will. Strategic sites are usually long-haul workstreams, particularly over the strategy and inception stages. However, once the development cycle gets going, benefits start to realise very quickly indeed.
3. Discover the Art of the Possible
Together with other primary stakeholders, there is a need to set a shared vision and agree potential strategies to realise it. There is no point in referring to dated, historical studies on file. Now is the time to be transparent and collaborative by comissioning ‘fresh eyes’ to establish what the site can truly offer from a development, commercial and delivery perspective.
As a minimum, parties need to pool resources and commission a feasibility study that establishes the ‘art of the possible’ in scope terms. This may include site capacity, construction cost and viability estimates, supported by various technical reports such as transport and movement, planning and heritage and environmental studies. Commissioning good quality CGI’s can also pay dividends. As marketing collateral, strong images help to inspire others, particularly funders and other community stakeholders.
Hosting a charette can also be helpful, as a focused, in-person workshop to review previous work on file, consider feasibility study findings and agree next steps collectively.
Like any strategy stage output, feasibility studies will inevitably reveal the major impediments to delivery and their mitigation. Perhaps a new road is required to unlock a site. Is it possible for a Local Authority to deliver it as an adopted highway sitting on the ‘public’ side of the fence? Perhaps a Local Authority can use its CPO powers to purchase adjacent ownerships, creating a bigger opportunity. Would an SPD help signal to the market that development is supported via planning policy?
4. Legalise
Agreeing to pool resources, set a vision and work together needs to be formalised with an appropriate legal agreement to give the opportunity ‘legs’. Its good to have roles, responsibilities, governance and decision making arrangements set out officially as the project advances. Depending on the scale, suitable forms may include development agreements, collaboration agreements and memorandums of understanding.
Negotiating at the heads of terms stage will take time, but it is more than worth it given the clarity that an agreement brings. Ensure you have a deadline to maintain pace, together with good commercial and development advice in support.
5 Be Bid Ready
With a credible project vision, exit strategy and legal agreement in place, much has been achieved. But don’t lose momentum - keep regular communication going through quarterly or bi-monthly catch ups regardless of what is, or isn’t happening. Don’t be afraid to add to the agenda as workstreams progress and conclude.
In terms of risks, perhaps some parties are better placed to mitigate them than others. If so, is there anything stopping them from starting now?
With opportunities, are potential funding rounds on the radar with a willingness to mobilise quickly and bid when they go live? Any funding opportunity will have a relatively short time frame to submission, particularly if you have to procure and manage external consultants. The more you can do in advance to be bid ready, the better.
What Next?
Getting into an ideal ‘enabling client’ position takes hard work. Your strategy and approach must be aligned with Local Plan policies, other programmes, economic development, asset management and your operating model to ensure success.
It may also emerge that you are more experienced than other stakeholders. Then it will fall to you to map the way and guide others on the journey.
But when it works, its fantastic.
If you’d like some expert help to use an ‘enabling client’ strategy, please reach out directly. I’d be happy to explore how you can best optimise your time, effort and resources to use it it successfully.
