Grow Places

GP 41: Construction in Crisis? Exploring Challenges and Solutions: with Rachel Coleman of Turner & Townsend alinea

• Grow Places • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Rachel Coleman, Head of Research at Turner & Townsend Alinea, takes us on a fascinating journey through the interconnected worlds of construction economics, data analytics, and place-making in this thought-provoking conversation.

With disarming candour, Rachel shares how she stumbled into a career in construction after studying physical geography — intending just a one-year office stint before returning to university. That temporary role evolved into a fulfilling vocation, connecting people and processes, addressing inefficiencies, and ensuring valuable knowledge flows through projects.

Despite the persistent challenges facing development — from rising costs to material shortages — Rachel offers refreshingly optimistic perspectives. She challenges the long-held belief that construction productivity has stagnated, citing evidence that properly planned work enables 7.5 people to achieve what previously required 10, simply through smarter sequencing and resource management.

The conversation takes an unexpected turn as Rachel reframes the debate around affordability. True affordability, she argues, extends beyond the building itself — encompassing proximity to schools and workplaces, access to affordable transport, and opportunities for diverse social interaction. It is, ultimately, about total living costs and quality of life.

For anyone navigating today’s complex development landscape, Rachel’s insights on data strategy are invaluable. She advocates for establishing a single "source of truth" to avoid outdated information, collecting comprehensive datasets while remaining conscious of cognitive biases, and demonstrating better approaches to shift industry mindsets.

Whether you're a developer, planner, policymaker, or simply curious about how the built environment takes shape, this conversation offers essential perspectives on creating more affordable, sustainable, and human-centred places — even amid economic headwinds and industry constraints.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Grow Places podcast, where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth and place Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, tom Larson.

Speaker 2:

Rachel. Hi Hiya how are you doing?

Speaker 3:

I'm okay, thank you. How are you?

Speaker 2:

Good. Thank you very much for joining me today. It's really a pleasure to have you on and to hear a bit more about you personally and the work that you're doing here at tnt linear, um. I think it's a very, very relevant topic for everyone listening. You know we're at a time when there's so much goodwill and and optimism and a need for places to develop, for us to deliver more housing, to deliver more development, but at a time when, at least in my working career, it's never been quite as difficult, so keen to unpack that with you and hopefully the listeners will get some insights into that as well. So before we dive fully into it, rachel, why don't you just tell everyone who you are?

Speaker 3:

So Rachel Coleman, um head of research at Turner Townsend Alinea, started my career at Davis Langdon, then ACOM, then moved to Alinea where we built up a knowledge and research brand. Um finally found a home at Turner Townsend Alinea yeah, fantastic, and um, and what does that?

Speaker 2:

what does that role mean to you? You know, what value do you add to the business, what value do you add to the process and clients?

Speaker 3:

So I generally describe the role as a general busybody part of everything largely connecting different people together. Inefficiency really bothers me, so when two people are trying to get to the same result at the same time without talking to each other. I think particularly consulting is a hugely personal business. It's all about those relationships that you build between different people and how that knowledge is transferred between people. So hopefully part of my role is that everyone can see the benefit of each other's work rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and how much of that is kind of inward looking for you within, guiding your teams, guiding the advice that you give here, and how much is kind of purposefully quite outward looking? The reason for asking that is we kind of meet periodically throughout the year when you do your crane surveys and you kind of talk in a kind of structured way about kind of what's happened in the past and where maybe things are going, but what's the day to day like as well for your role behind the scenes.

Speaker 3:

The day to day is very much constant conversations with people to see what various challenges are, what the commonalities between projects are, what challenges are, um trying to get ahead of those trends. So you talk about it being particularly difficult at the moment and particularly changeable. Um, I don't think I've ever had a year where it's been quiet and easy. I think that year was probably 2015 before everything else went wrong. Um, so, yeah, it's a lot of conversations and keeping up to date with projects and people yeah, so, so what?

Speaker 2:

what is the most important thing, then, at the moment that we you talk about internally, that we should talk about here some of those blockers?

Speaker 3:

progress? I think so. We. I have recently been talking about how very little seems to change in the construction industry, but at the same time everything changes. So we all like to come up with a new solution to the current challenges. We're seeing whether it's viability, whether it's productivity, labour shortages. I think it's only in recent years we've actually started tackling those um and seeing it as more of a personal responsibility on most companies. I think until we had covid, a lot of people thought it was someone else's problem to deal with challenges in the industry. Now I think everyone's realizing that everyone has an active part to play yeah, so.

Speaker 2:

So what? What are those blockers then? What are those challenges? How do you look at construction, economics, productivity, how do you break those things down?

Speaker 3:

So, working for a cost consultant, we always break it down by cost. So we take the average cost of a project, see how much the material is labour over in profit and margin, work out what's driving each of those um and what's not driving it. So when you look at sustainability, for example, um, it's been a challenge recently to meet all of the sustainable attributes that you need to meet in the building whilst also balancing balancing that against cost and premium projects, premium products, um, and trying to find a balance between all of those. So we like to speak to everyone across the supply chain contractors, suppliers to work out what their unique challenges are, so that everyone has a voice and everything gets considered, whether we're doubling up on things, whether, um, sometimes things just need a conversation to work from beginning to end, um to try and tackle some of those yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what are the those unique challenges then you think we're we're facing at the moment? Like why are construction costs going up? Why are projects not viable?

Speaker 3:

um, we've seen an awful lot of inflation over the last couple of years. Um, some of it is true inflation. So we all saw the shortage of materials and labor after covid when everyone was building their way out of covid. We've seen huge demand from infrastructure and public sector projects and industrial projects. There's been some. Some of it is due to specification change. So, like, every building has to have increased amenity, space has to be really sustainable, has to be flexible All of the things that make it different from pre-COVID. And productivity is a big one. So we we know that with fewer people, we have to be more productive. Um, so, learning those lessons across different pieces yeah, yeah and so.

Speaker 2:

So how do you see that productivity piece maybe? Because I know part of your work is kind of looking backwards and kind of mapping what's happened, um, that database and part of it is looking forward, isn't it, and kind of projecting whether that's what's the kind of short to medium term impact of kind of macroeconomic trends, or whether that's technology, um, obviously there's a, there's a huge amount, you, it's kind of exponential at the moment, the big things on the horizon or even here. So how do you see that some of those factors affecting productivity cost and maybe also the kind of the breakdown of what goes into a kind of cost plan and makes up the split between, say, labor and materials, et cetera?

Speaker 3:

It's a slightly unpopular opinion but I think we have, as an industry, made really good moves towards increasing productivity recently because we've noticed that it is a genuine challenge we have to face. I think it was always a buzzword a few years ago to say that construction productivity hasn't increased, but when you look at particularly what subcontractors are doing and measures of productivity, it has increased. We learned a lot from the covid years when we had to reduce the number of people on site and how that impacted phasing of works, properly designing things before it gets on site and working out who needs to be where. There was a great report written by loughborough university with a bunch of subcontractors that showed the benefit of better planning work and we're trying to bring some of those key messages that we should have properly learned and embedded through covid into current projects yeah, and can you, can you tell us what some of those, maybe some of those benefits are?

Speaker 3:

yeah. So one of the key call outs from that report was that if you properly plan your work, you can have seven and a half people do the work of 10 people. And that was things like if you have to, if you're fitting out three offices so three cellular offices next to each other, um and you have your dry liner come in. Don't get them to do one and then go away again and then come back and do the second one. Plan it so they can be in, make the most efficient use of their time. It's even things like, um, better use of management on site as well. So I was talking to someone in the office a few years ago saying that instead of them having to walk the site every month, they had someone walk the site every week with a camera on their head and you could compare those without having to make that two-hour journey to the site.

Speaker 2:

Obviously there are benefits to doing that um, but it's just seeing where we can use people's time better yeah, yeah, and obviously automation and instead of things and other sensors, and you know, that kind of thing is going to probably take that a step further again digital tools, making sure that that's what everyone's looking at the right information.

Speaker 3:

If you have one source of truth, it makes it easier for people to work more efficiently rather than scrabbling around the bits of paper.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah and so so if you had a um like a crystal ball and you could kind of like project forward a few years and suddenly the environment was more favorable for development to happen. You know what? What would have had to have happened to get to that point, and and and what does that more favorable kind of landscape look like?

Speaker 3:

well, that's a good question I just wrote it up, right now so it's not predetermined.

Speaker 3:

I think it depends who you ask, and I think we all secretly know the answers. Because, yeah, I was looking at a very old report from 1964 that gives you the ingredients for better, more advantageous, more productive work. That talks about all the things we all talk about, so early engagement of specialists, properly planning your work, um, and it feels like if we do that is, rather than trying to rebrand productivity into different things and everyone wanting to come up with a new initiative, we all just focus on doing the basics really well.

Speaker 2:

I think that'd be a huge start. Yeah, and so in that there's kind of like the human aspect, isn't there Kind of like team dynamics?

Speaker 3:

culture. Yeah, setting things up correctly and understanding what your value drivers are and what you need to do for a successful project.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and so you know, know, I fully agree. All of that's super important. Um, and then maybe from like the opposite end, then in terms of advancements, you know terms like modern methods of construction get thrown around as kind of like almost like you know, the white knight that's going to come in and save everything if we can use modern methods of construction. You know whatever that actually means. Um, so how do you maybe personally, as a business kind of see that um, that whole world that is kind of captured in that one buzzword?

Speaker 3:

agreed. I think it means different things to different people In different uses. It probably works very, very well. So I know there's a move towards creating healthcare buildings modulary, Seeing how it drives the value. I know there's difference of opinion in how flexible it is because you have to lock down your design a lot earlier. Speeding it up can be a big benefit. So if you're repeating something over and over again, being able to speed up that process obviously doesn't work for everything. Where you need a more flexible design that can be customised to your end user. A more flexible design that can be customized to your end user um, but there is definitely scope to use it where it works.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and so so for you personally, then, rachel, like what, why? Why have you sort of spent your career and kind of, maybe, over time, kind of specialized into this niche of of, um, yeah, of data, of research, of kind of analytics and and, um, yeah, why does that kind of get you out of bed in the morning?

Speaker 3:

that's a very good question, um, so I I never meant to be here. I meant to, so I left university, came here for a year, went to dav London for a year before I meant to go back to university. I studied physical geography and my ambition was never, ever to be in an office. I wanted to be outside, hated the idea of being in an office, but then I found out that I quite enjoyed the work. I enjoyed talking to people, I enjoyed the collaboration of it, the fact that no two weeks are the same. There is a lot of change in the industry, so it depends on. I started out into buildings and then got into data and then got further into data. It's the change and challenge of it. Everyone's got an opinion of what they think the sector should be. It's the sector that's constantly changing, wants to change, um, and it's finding all the good ideas within it that interest me yeah, yeah and um and and maybe like what, what?

Speaker 2:

what do you think are some of those kind of core things you've talked about, the kind of the interaction with people you've talked about, um, that kind of analytical, reflective side, but but what, um, what would you say, like you know, in that day-to-day is kind of like the thing that you think kind of adds the most to the process of of this and kind of feels the most kind of like intentional for you in terms of this is really kind of adding value to what we do and to the process and and maybe obviously then naturally to kind of clients and projects so I get involved really early in projects when it's still feasibility, working on viabilities and um confidence as well.

Speaker 3:

I think it's really interesting to see a project that you know from paper from years ago seeing how it slowly develops into a built project that you can walk past, probably have lunch in, go to the top of, have a nice dinner and you can look and see all of the pieces that you've helped develop. I think that's the really exciting, interesting bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, definitely that kind of physical reality to what we do that you've helped develop. I think that's the really exciting, interesting part. Yeah, yeah, definitely um, that kind of that physical reality to what we do, um and um. You know, in terms of the, in terms of the, the data side, then I don't know tnt linear. You know you're very um, you've got a lot of resources, you're kind of across a lot of sectors, um, and with that comes a kind of a sort of a knowledge base that is quite powerful. So so how do you how you don't need to obviously give us too many trade secrets, but like how do you kind of view data in that way of kind of kind of across sectors, across kind of geographies, and then, and then how do you kind of use that to sort of empower what you do?

Speaker 3:

So having a decent background of data is really useful because it means that we can talk about something with confidence. So I was in a meeting a few weeks ago where we were able to pull up design benchmarking, which, so you'd think a cost consultant would cherish the cost data more than anything else. But because the context of those costs will change so much, it's about the environment that it has to sit in. So take, for example, student residential, where there's been several trends of you went from how you design your bedroom in your student residential to what ancillary surfaces do you put around it. Do you put cinema, do you put a bar, do you put sports facility? And then you find out that in your student residential, everyone will just go back to their bedrooms and maybe leave the building.

Speaker 3:

Um, it's seeing how those design trends impact the overall cost of the project. Is that's something tangible that your team can work on, rather than just what's the cost of steel, what's the cost of concrete? So I think it's not just the how much data you have, it's how much you have on different aspects of what you can impact.

Speaker 2:

And so because, also, I think the thing for me with data is like it's what are you trying to measure, what are you trying to kind of understand?

Speaker 2:

Because, as you say, you can have a sea of data and not necessarily get any kind of actionable sort of insights from that um. So do you see kind of like what, those kind of um viability metrics, those kind of actionable steps being quite consistent in terms of different use classes and different different projects? Obviously, you know, for us as a developer, you know kind of you know net to gross efficiencies, floor, wall to floor kind of, some of these kind of sort of quite fundamental metrics that we look at at the very start of projects obviously have a, a big impact on how that project um develops and and how, um, how easy it will be to procure and to buy and, you know, to build at the back end um, so yeah, do you see that kind of um that kind of being something which is kind of consistent across different uses, or do you see different kind of areas, sort of focusing on one or other aspect?

Speaker 3:

they will vary between different sectors. Everyone will have their own cherished pieces that they like to protect and I think it will also differ depending on the what kind of developer you are. Yeah, and also once you start going out to the supply chain, they will also have their own metrics. So risk is a really big one at the moment, and margin, which will always be different depending on what kind of economic context you're in. So I think, if you wanted to list some most important ones, they would very much be a product of the use class and the context they're going out to the market in yeah, and are you seeing that kind of translate into the types of projects that you're looking more at as a company, like are you?

Speaker 2:

are you seeing more projects come forward with a certain use class than another, or or has that kind of changed over the past few years? Do you think?

Speaker 3:

it has changed recently, partly because of things like building safety act, which is softening the residential market somewhat, and data centers have been really strong recently because we all need more data. I mean, you're sat here with an almighty amount of things connected to the internet which will all connect to something else. We all have about four devices on us every day that will connect to the network, so the demand for that is growing, which is always going to be reflected in the type of projects that are being built. We've also seen changes because of things like last mile delivery warehousing, post-covid, um, pre-brexit warehousing in london has increased quite a bit.

Speaker 2:

We've all seen the change in the high street, so the type of projects that anyone will see changed yeah, yeah, and do you see any kind of like trends looking forward to kind of where you think that will go in terms of different uses, or have you got a feel for that?

Speaker 3:

you know you said you studied geography in the past and you know you must kind of have a bit of a sensibility for for that, both from your work and also just more broadly it's interesting because if you'd have asked the same question five years ago, when we were in the middle of covid, I think everyone was saying all the office is dead, no one's going to be going back to cities, it's all going to be, um, true, um, decentralization of the workplace. Everyone's going to be at home, and I don't. We haven't seen that. Um, I think we're still unpicking what the future of real estate would be.

Speaker 3:

Um, I think everyone's realized that I mean much as we're sat here in an office today, um, people still want to gather and talk to people, but I think we're also realizing that the way people want to live and work is more than just an isolated building. We're looking more at what's outside of the building, what's in the city, how do people move around a city. I think, as we move through this period of quite a lot of workplace change, we'll realise that it's more or I hope we'll realise it's more about the parks, the spaces in between the buildings. What's at the bottom of your building? Um, what brings people that aren't workers to your city center?

Speaker 2:

those kind of ancillary pieces. Yeah, no, I completely agree, um, as you say, that I don't think the need for people to, to be sat together is going to go away, but equally there are some, you know, sizable headwinds to you know any one sector, whether that's officers or or even even residential, at the moment, um, and and yeah, good places are kind of a mixture, aren't they of those things? But allowing people to, to, to be human and to connect and to do those kind of quite basic things in a lot of respects and kind of connecting with each other, and so maybe, like you know, projecting a little bit further forwards than in terms of some of the projects that are on the drawing board now, with all those kind of headwinds that we've talked about, kind of macroeconomic headwinds and the effect on labour and construction, how do you think you know, for us as a business, grow places? We're very sort of keen on the subject of affordability and how do we make places more affordable for people, whether that's obviously things like rental, you know, cost of living, how to improve quality of life through making places more affordable. Now, clearly, for us, that could be where you build kind of location choices.

Speaker 2:

It can also be a factor of what you build, whether that's the land use, the profile of the product you're doing. For example, you're not going to see any luxury apartments or people drinking champagne in any of our schemes. It's much more grounded than that. So there's a product, product piece, but then, once you've kind of got those aspects, it's then the kind of what you build. How do you build in a way that's flexible? How do you build using less materials, using using less resource, whether that's human resource or or material resource? So that's kind of our area of interest and the direction of travel that we'd like to see happen. So how would you see that kind of playing out in terms of you know, those construction and economic factors?

Speaker 3:

Speaking from a personal point of view, I would really like to see the affordability conversation expand to beyond the building that someone lives in. So it's all about. I think it should be more about what services sit around that building. How easy is it for someone to get to work? Is it for someone to get to work Because you could have an affordable apartment built somewhere where you have to have a car or you pay extortionate bus service fares, next to a local library, so you don't have to buy all the resources that your children need? Walkable spaces so that you can develop a decent human being within an affordable setting, so that your school is nearby, you see people going to work, you get to interact with a variety of people, and so we don't end up with just an affordable. How we determine affordable to be in an unaffordable context, to determine affordable to be in an unaffordable context. I think I'd like to see the affordable story develop that way a bit more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. And the construction economics is only one part of a development consideration. As you say, you've got the plan kind of what the planning risk is, the, the actual strategy is what the market risk is and, as I say, cost has to kind of sit alongside all those other things. Um, and that's why, you know, I think it's a fascinating kind of conversation to have this, because, um, it is very difficult at the moment, you know, to make development work. Um, people in society, people in politics, you know, have very strong aspirations. Then the need case, the why do we need more development, why do we need more homes is very clear and actually I think currently it's. You know that messaging is is actually kind of filtering through to from the top down now, which is, which is really good, but the kind of the how to do that is is very difficult.

Speaker 2:

Um, in the current landscape, um, you've got pressure from the on the value side, you know people affordability, people can't afford as much, whether that's um due to inflation or whether that's due to interest rates or you know other factors, and that could be the individual person or that could be.

Speaker 2:

You know companies having uncertainty in terms of their cash flow, um, uh. And then obviously, on the you know, on the construction side, you know whether it's some of the geopolitical risk that we've got at the moment, um, what effect that has on supply chains? Um, I don't know if you have a view on that. Obviously we've had, obviously you mentioned covid a lot already and that was to see a huge spike in, um, you know commodity prices and we're still feeling that now, as well as you know brexit and other factors. We've had more locally but, um, it feels like maybe we're in a whole nother world of geopolitical uncertainty now. And tariffs and, um, I don't know, I struggle to see that being anything other than inflationary, to be honest, um, but I don't know what your view on that is it's an interesting question because, um, when you take the last Trump presidency, when he did exactly the same routine, the world was a very different place.

Speaker 3:

We were heading into Brexit and growth generally in the EU was quite low. China's property prices was beginning, so we saw demand fall over that period, which meant that the last time around, we saw the cost of steel and commodities actually fall because there were too many of them, and the tariff fall encouraged people to pause and think about what they were doing a bit more. We saw construction output in London fall, not because of the Trump tariffs, but because of the general uncertainty we had. So it's not as clear-cut. As tariffs go up, prices go up the whole multitude of factors that will influence it Something we're watching I think everyone's watching it to see what happens and to see where the steel, the steel or aluminium that isn't exported to the States, where that ends up, because it's going to be produced and so it will be sent somewhere and if there's still demand for it, it will be bought. So that's a challenging one.

Speaker 2:

So how do you see some of those macro, international factors, global factors? To what extent do you think they directly translate to price of construction, say in the UK? Because is there always a direct correlation or is it kind of a sometimes thing?

Speaker 3:

I think it's changing one. So 10 years ago if share price for chinese property developer fell, it would have been a little while before it got through to you on your phone and had an impact. Um, whereas now you see it immediately and I think, where we've had such difficult five years in construction, people are looking for any reason to be concerned about something. I think, particularly through COVID, everyone was encouraged to look at things a little bit, the absolute minute detail of everything, and then we've got out of that pattern. It's the same as the news throughout the last 10 years has been really reactive, had to publish something every day, and I think we've kind of taken on a little bit of that mentality where we just need to consume more news to be more certain. But it actually makes us less certain. Remember a few years ago there was a day when all of the retailers announced their reports within two hours of each other and it caused absolute chaos to their share prices. So they sat down afterwards and thought, well, maybe we should spread these out a little bit to stop that chaotic period of buy, sell, then pause and no one knows what to do.

Speaker 3:

Um, so I think global events are becoming more um of an important reporting technique for us. So we, since 2015, we've always looked at the market every single week. We look at what's happening materials, what's happening in the global investment market, global construction market and the UK construction market, and I think that's actually been really nice because it teaches us that very little is new, chances are. We saw it a few months ago so we can work out what the impact of that was. And it's less knee-jerky because it enables us to put today's news in context, whereas if you have something like when the ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and everyone panicked, you think, well, you've had shipping blockages before not literal blockages, but normally. But it means that we can better understand where our goods come from and what the likely impact of that is, rather than seeing an event for the first time, panicking and stopping what you're doing because of it. So I think it's both a blessing and a curse that we can get so much news so quickly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, interesting, and so I know that there's never one supply chain. But if you were to take kind of typical I don't know urban building, london or Manchester, wherever it was in the UK, and you were to try and break down supply, where the goods have come from, how they've got here, what percentage of the cost is the various materials, what percentage is labour, what would that kind of look like as a kind of rule of thumb?

Speaker 3:

So the Construction Products Association say that 80% of the building materials will come from the UK. The thing that I really want to unpick is where do those materials the build those materials come from? Because we know that we don't have much of a manufacturing industry in the UK, so chances are it's probably more of an assembly of pieces, unless it's things like stone or cement or bricks which we know we make them here. It's very much. How long is a piece of string? Where do you go back to for your source to say that it's actually made in the uk or made elsewhere? Um, labor has been a particularly changeable topic recently because we know that a lot of european labor went home during covid and got stuck on the side of the border when new skills reasons came in, and we're now seeing the fallout from that with our reduced workforce and our ageing workforce. Does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it does, definitely. And so how do you see kind of material passporting, circular economy, some of these themes? Because, as you say, it's incredibly difficult to map those supply chains with any degree of certainty, whether it's the overarching element, for example, a fan coil unit, let alone to go into the components of the fan coil unit, and where do they come from. So, um, you know, to make informed decisions, we rely on data, but we rely on the data being accurate and being detailed enough. So, yeah, how do you see all of that and maybe in terms of currently, supply chains, maybe degrees of certainty and aspiration in where we want to get to?

Speaker 3:

So I think that the construction industry is increasingly reusing more elements, which speaks to your circular economy point. I think we've realised that even if you want to keep hold of a building for 15 years, the materials that go into it will last a lot longer. So it's more. What can we do with those pieces? And we've seen it being legislated of um presumption of reuse and people exploring how that can be done, whether it's the facade, whether it's pieces of it or a reimagining of what's already there. I think we're seeing more of that and I think it's being encouraged more and it's being shouted about more. I think that's a really good thing, but it means that we have to properly understand a building before we start to reuse it and what that means for how you can reuse it. There was already talk recently about the Marks and Spencer's building on Oxford Street, which it's rare that a construction project makes it onto the front page of a newspaper. I think that shows how much more is being considered.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and in that world which clearly we're moving into, reuse, circularity, being much more critical and careful about understanding the impact of what we do and the materials, and not just forward-looking, but also the embedded energy in buildings and places. Um, you've mentioned already about um, the manufacturing base in the uk, kind of industry. You know we've we've globalization. We've kind of gone away from that, haven't we? And actually, you know you mentioned um about what's going on in the us and there's lots of things going on there, but one of the things is it's kind of like you know, we're going to re-industrialize how, how, how successful or realistic that may be, but that kind of touches on the kind of thread, doesn't it, which is kind of like this um, this, yeah, this desire to kind of to make more on on your own soil, um, so how do you see that in terms of the uk at all, in terms of um, maybe some of those, those trends or um, and do you would you see that actually having a benefit in terms of of cost or or or supply chains?

Speaker 3:

there was an awful lot of talk about this a few years ago, partly because of the broken international supply chains, when everyone suggested that there was going to be this mass reassuring of construction product um creation.

Speaker 3:

In all likelihood that's not viable for quite a lot of things.

Speaker 3:

I mean, all of our facades glass facades come from europe and stone comes from here, but for some pieces it's just not viable.

Speaker 3:

I think people are looking to locally source where they can, and I think that has found its way out of construction as well. I I mean, even in our own house we've looked at reducing the amount of plastic things we have and buying more locally made from personal experience. So that does come at a cost premium and I wouldn't be surprised if that's replicated in construction materials as well, because there's always a reason that it was usually a reason that it's made somewhere else, whether that's for expertise, which is the case in a lot of places but you could bring those expertise here, um or cost base. I know that during the brexit years as well, there was a one-on-one fashion retailer that tried to bring, tried to domesticate its embroidery and leading skills um, and they had to cancel it because it just raised their cost base an awful lot. So I think where it's appropriate it will happen and where it's easy and viable it will, and there's definitely more of an ambition to do so yeah, yeah, interesting um.

Speaker 2:

So then maybe just to finish, then, obviously as an industry, everyone is looking kind of inwardly about data and kind of what they do, so to get some of the step changes that we need around, you know, cost, productivity, collaboration, some of the things we talked about here how do you see that collaboration within the industry between, um, different sectors, um, or whether it's between different specialities, so the cost consultant, the developer, the architect, the structural engineer, etc. And do you see that leading to kind of deeper knowledge, deeper understanding, better data?

Speaker 3:

that's going to lead to better outcomes so, to take it back a little bit, I think in order to get that data that delivers better outcomes, that enables the collaboration and speaks to everything we've spoken about so far so productivity and labor and the cost I think we need a few different skills in the industry, some of those special digital offerings, so that, from experience, a lot of people will go to the data that they know and they understand and it's what they've always used. But I think we're at a point where we need to use data differently. We need to use data more obviously and be clearer about how we do it, which means that we need proper data specialists in the industry. A lot of people are making steps towards that. And then, on the collaboration piece of it, we need to find a way to work out how each other want to talk about data and what data feeds their value and uses, which is almost defining a new way of working between everyone yeah so from.

Speaker 2:

So, from your lens, then if you were to be setting the data strategy for grow places as a developer, what, what would be the things that you would? You would be sort of including within that day strategy from the knowledge of what you have as being within the kind of consultancy aspect.

Speaker 3:

I have one source of the truth. The number of times in the distant past that you would pick up what you think is the true fact of your data and find that, well, that's an old version. Why am I able to get this, then? It should be one true fact. Um, I'm a big advocate of collecting everything that you can and then working out what to do with it, or coming the other way and working out what questions you need to answer with the data, but then that leads you slightly towards a world where you only collect the data that supports the views that you want to, which is where that different knowledge and different expertise comes in, and sharing it.

Speaker 2:

So how do you battle some of those kind of like cognitive biases then that we all have, whether individually or whether as a company, definitely as an industry?

Speaker 3:

uh, demonstrate the use of something, because if cognitive biases generally exist outside of you being shown something different, um, because it's generally a deep set bias that you have if you demonstrate the value of working differently, using something differently time and time again, people will generally change their cognitive bias. Um, and it's also about how you regulate something that you want to work on yeah, super interesting.

Speaker 2:

Rachel, thank you very much for joining me today. It's been a really great conversation and, um, definitely, for me at least, there's kind of there's more questions than answers in all of this, which is the the uh, the sort of interesting thing about the industry, but also the challenge that we all face, I think, collectively, to try and to try and make places, uh, more affordable to, to make development more viable and to retain kind of a collaborative culture, as you've kind of suggested there. So, yeah, thanks for all your insights thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Grow Places podcast. For more information, visit growplacescom and follow us at. We Grow Places across all social channels. See you next time.