Interesting to see the government has felt the necessity to separately issue the responses to the housebuilding market study working papers accompanying the CMA report published a few days ago. What caught my attention is the evidence they have overlooked. There are no landed estates responses in the ‘private management of public amenities on housing estates’ section.. Whilst no expert in this sector, I am struck that not one of the well known landed estates for example the Crown Estate, the Grosvenor Estate etc. provided evidence despite their generational accumulated expertise on protecting and enhancing the public realm None of their many years experience was used by the authors of the CMA report.
Why.? Michael Gove has acknowledged that one Crown Estate housing project is showing evidence of premium values.being created through good estate management principles. So this is a strange omission. We know that landed estates deliberately keep a low profile. Surely the CMA can overcome their preference for a coy, almost invisible business model before deciding whether the private management of privately owned but publicly used urban areas cannot be good news?
Ian Campbell
17 March 2024
