Nigel Hugill: Interview in Regeneration and Renewal
Date: 12/07/2010Publication: Regeneration and Renewal
The new chair of think-tank the Centre for Cities believes that with the nation's attention fixed on spending cuts, now is the time for cities to take the initiative and show government how devolution of greater powers might work, reports Adam Branson.
"Mr deputy speaker, over the past decade the British economy has become deeply unbalanced," intoned chancellor George Osborne in his Budget speech last month. "Nowhere are these disparities as marked as between the different regions of Britain. Between 1998 and 2008, for every private sector job generated in the North and the Midlands, ten were created in London and the South."
That worrying statistic was drawn from a report by think-tank the Centre for Cities and, according to the its new chair Nigel Hugill, the fact that Osborne drew on the report for his first Budget speech demonstrates that the centre's work is taken seriously in Westminster. "I think producing that sort of information allows you to influence policy and help some of the provincial cities ameliorate some of those very obvious pressures and trends," he says.
Hugill joined the Centre for Cities earlier this month, replacing Tom Bloxham of developer Urban Splash, and brings with him extensive experience of city development. Until the end of 2008 he was the executive director of Lend Lease Europe, overseeing the developer's projects across the continent. Hugill then spent 2009 advising national regeneration quango the Homes & Communities Agency's chief executive as the body tried to respond to the financial crisis.
These days Hugill is usually at the Mayfair offices of Urban & Civic, the development company that he set up late last year. With private equity backing, the firm made its the first acquisition in November, of a 445ha site adjoining the A1(M) and East Coast Main Line, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.
So with a nascent company to nurture, why did Hugill decide to accept the chair of a busy young think-tank, one, moreover, that is in the process of losing chief executive Dermot Finch? "Firstly, because I think they have achieved a lot in their first five years," he says. "But secondly because I think it is an organisation of the times. It has carved out a position in relation to empirically-based research. People have said that Dermot and his team have shown an ability to anticipate issues; to raise them a little bit before they became current."
Hugill clearly believes that this is an excellent time for the Centre for Cities to get involved in shaping future government policy. While all the coalition's energies are focused on hacking away at the UK's deficit, he says, there is an opportunity to shape future urban policy. "It's very clear that the priority in the first instance is cutting the deficit and that will be the mantra for a period," he says. "But that can't be the policy for a full five-year term. So there will be a time when you've got to fill that vacuum."
However, Hugill believes that there is no point in cities simply waiting for the next batch of policies to emerge from Westminster. The Government has talked openly of its desire to move towards devolution of powers away from the centre, but it is down to councils to tell the Government how that might work. "I think that localism places an onus on provincial cities to come up with their own proposals. We're in a strong position to contribute to that," he says. "With the number of cities we've already worked with, we've got a knowledge base that's grounded in practicalities, rather than on some philosophical excursion. This is not going to be a period when evangelism gets a whole lot of airtime."
Of course, devolving increased responsibility to cities is all well and good, but without access to increased resources, doesn't it risk becoming something of a hospital pass from a council's perspective? "If this administration is to be properly radical in that regard, then it will have to properly devolve and that power will also have revenue implications," he says. "I think one of the real tests of the localism agenda will be the preparedness to allow cities to keep more of the revenues that they currently generate."
That is not to say he is sceptical about the Government's intentions. He believes that the proposed planning policy, whereby the Government would match the council tax for each new home in a local authority area with an equivalent contribution to the council for six years, is encouraging. "I'm not sure that six years is enough, but it's a step in the right direction. I think that the question ought to be about keeping a greater proportion of the revenue that is generated locally rather than new local taxes."
But doesn't the issue of devolution come down to an electoral bet? Presuming that a government wishes to remain in power, when passing greater powers to town halls it has to assume that if the town hall makes a hash of it, the public will blame local, not national, politicians. Hugill smiles and picks up the thread. "And while claiming interest in devolution, Margaret Thatcher clearly felt that she had to save local authorities from themselves," he says. "So there was a resulting centralisation because of her not being willing to trust those local authorities whose political affiliation she disagreed with."
However, it's also clear that Hugill believes that the coalition has the will to at least start to turn back the tide of centralism. "Of course it's fraught with complication, but from where I'm sat, the coalition looks strong and will be there for the full term. And on that basis you have to assume that the thrust towards localism will survive throughout the administration."
Another issue on which the Centre for Cities has traditionally been highly vocal is the creation of city-regions: cross boundary agreements between councils that aim to address the governance of functional economic areas, rather than individual local authorities. But Hugill sounds a note of caution. "It's something we're going to have to look at, because the term 'city-region' means different things to different people," he says. "We have this unusual situation in the UK, where quite substantial cities with distinct histories are geographically cheek by jowl with each other."
This article first appeared in Regeneration and Renewal.
