Grow Places

GP 43: Regeneration Needs Trust: Partnerships with Kat Hanna of Avison Young

• Grow Places • Season 1 • Episode 43

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In this new episode of the Grow Places Podcast, we explore one of the most critical but often overlooked elements of successful regeneration: trust.

Kat Hanna, Co-Managing Director (London) at Avison Young, joins us to talk about her journey from public policy into real estate, and how meaningful partnerships—rooted in trust—are essential for delivering real, long-term change in our towns and cities.

🎯 We cover:

  • How regeneration strategies must evolve beyond physical design
  • The role of inclusive thinking and authentic engagement
  • What public and private sector actors can learn from each other
  • Why building trust early is key to sustainable urban transformation

💬 “Regeneration can’t be delivered without trust—it’s not just strategy, it’s the foundation.” – Kat Hanna

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:

Kat, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast today. It's really good to see you Normally bump into each other in slightly more formal settings, at events or conferences, where you're doing an amazing job hosting and sort of navigating the kind of conversations that happen within the industry, so really great to speak to you today. Learn a bit more about yourself personally, what you're doing at Abyssin Young and more broadly, so why don't you introduce yourself to everyone first?

Speaker 3:

Great will do so. Yeah, hi, I'm Kat Kat Hanna. I'm co-managing director here for London at Averson Young, so I've been here just coming up for three years.

Speaker 2:

Great, great. And before that you were I don't. I didn't know you before Averson Young, but what did you do before?

Speaker 3:

So quite a varied background, to be honest, and I'm sure we'll probably unpick that a little bit more. But immediately before was at L lease, um, so working on the houston project, um, which is the first time I've ever really worked on a project as such. So nice, really easy one uh to get started on, but um, really good in terms of, I guess, getting a complete uh sort of bats and by fire, I guess, in everything that you need to start getting projects off the ground yeah, yeah, yeah, no, super interesting and um, you know what we at grow places.

Speaker 2:

We're, you know, really interested in regeneration.

Speaker 2:

The more complex the better in terms of those projects and um, it's fair to say I don't think many projects these days are are not complicated for various reasons no, but that that aspiration for improving people's quality of life through regeneration of of our towns and cities, um, um mix of uses, social infrastructure and um you know, that's what we're really passionate about and um so. So what do you think you know from from your perspective, from avidst and young perspective, kind of you know? What does, what does all that mean in terms of the types of places we're creating, the way we're going about it?

Speaker 3:

So I think, in terms of what that means, we can probably break it down into a few different things. I think, firstly, that point around town centres and city centres is something both myself, but actually Avis and Young, we're incredibly interested in and active in, and one of the reasons, whilst I now have a London role here at Avis Young, we're incredibly interested in and active in and you know, one of the reasons, whilst I now, you know, I have a London role here at Avis Young but one of the things that really appeals to me in joining the business was our strong regional footprint and the fact that we've kind of been embedded actually in the growth, the evolution of, you know, of towns and cities, you know, in some cases for, you know, like a century and involved in some of those really pivotal projects, and I think seeing how those can shape cities is particularly important. So I think, you know, now being at that stage where even some of those projects that we've worked on or others have worked on what may not seem that long ago, we're obviously now revisiting. You know, if you look, for example, I mean I'm always fascinated by shopping centres, for example. If you look, for example, I mean I'm always, I have a bit of thing fascinated by shopping centers, for example, um, and the amount of towns, for example, that were hit with an absolute glut of retail, then often combined with some out-of-town retail. Now we're many ways oversupplied and thinking again these whole questions what is a town center for? What is retail? How does that involve? What's the social function, the economic function, bringing residential, all those sorts of pieces of something we're grappling with on quite a few projects, but, like I said, something that personally, you know, I find really interesting.

Speaker 3:

And then I guess the other side of that is less about this evolution of existing places, but actually the extent to which we can and which we are creating new places. Um, and actually what does that look like? And I think, in some ways is one easier or harder than the other? I don't know. I think often people say, actually it's so much easier if you just had, you know, a blank slate to go out and, as you said, there's not many of those around anymore. But actually, if we're challenging ourselves to think about, well, what is that at scale that is sustainable in all the senses of the word and adaptable really for the long-term future, actually starting with a blank slate is quite hard um, whether it's thinking about the infrastructure, energy, power, what homes should look like, what employment centers should look like. So that other piece as well is something that I find, you know, particularly interesting yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

because you know we talk about place growth.

Speaker 2:

Uh, it's kind of a whole mantra, and and that, for me, is about kind of understanding that places are kind of on a continuum, they have a life and they'll have a life in the future, and our project and our involvement in a place is kind of like a point in time and so trying to find something within that place that, um, that exists already and that you can kind of build from um, I think that kind of spirit is really, really, you know, needed to to bed things in communities.

Speaker 2:

But then, alongside that, you have got, you know, frankly, really struggling places, really struggling town centers that are either built for different periods of time when you know consumer habits were different or technology was different. And then you've got the agenda around, kind of like new settlements and that kind of actual kind of new place creation, which, as I say, we have a slight sort of different take on, but the idea of being very aspirational to deliver some of these major targets that the government have got to, to address some of the kind of socio-economic issues that that we have, and the kind of threads, probably, that go through all of that. So yeah, I wonder what you think, maybe at those different scales, maybe, like you know, high street regeneration and then a new town, if you want, like from Avid young's perspective, like how, how you kind of tackle those different challenges, or do you see it all in?

Speaker 3:

it's a similar approach yeah, it's a really good question. I think you know it's probably not necessarily about there being a single kind of you know, averson young perspective, because again, it's often really about understanding the context in which we're working off, very often the partners who we're working with and actually what's the role that we're playing as well. Because you know, again, one of the things that I've really enjoyed kind of getting to know here is all the aspects and kind of advice and services, professional services, that are involved in making any project successful. And obviously I saw that kind of on one side, admittedly very much at the beginning stage of projects when I was at Lendlease and the frankly small army of consultants that's been involved in that. But actually seeing it on the other side, when it comes to you know that delivery end is actually you know the philosophy we might bring to, that often very much depends on you know who it is we're working with or for, you know, and what it is that they are trying to achieve.

Speaker 3:

But I think you know there's obviously some very high level. You know common points around your point about contributing something that is going to have an impact that's positive both in terms of, you know, socioeconomics but actually in terms of creating a better place. And again, I think, if you look at a lot of the projects that our people tend to get excited by and are motivated by, it is often those that are actually having that more kind of transformative impact and something you can kind of point to and say you know, we made that happen Because, let's be honest, it's something that's quite unique to the sector that you can obviously kind of point and do that right. Yeah, yeah, exactly, so that you could obviously kind of point and do that right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly that sort of transformation from an idea to a collection of people, to a built thing, you know, is, I think, one of the reasons why, definitely, I get passionate about what we do. Going through those stages I did to paper permission and build is difficult and takes time, and that's right in a lot of ways because you know we are dealing with places and people's lives and we, we have to take the time to make those decisions correctly. But equally, it'd be great, obviously collectively, if some of these things maybe happened a little bit quicker.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's it's a really valid point and you know, it's something I often find myself in a lot of rooms where there's this tension often between this quite lazy bashing of the planning system and planners and then, on the other hand, a quite crude characterization of all developers as kind of rapacious and only interested in making a lot of money and then getting out. And obviously, as we know, there's a lot of nuance in between those and I guess I think the point of responsibility is a really interesting one because actually the decisions that we make and the people that we work with make that yourself make are obviously going to impact people for a long time to come. That said, we also know the paralysis of indecision has massive consequences, not just obviously in terms of the more obvious things around, things like housing shortage, but actually in terms of overall what can maybe be a stagnation of place and, you know, missed opportunities to create places where people can really thrive yeah, yeah, fully agreed.

Speaker 2:

So so maybe like capturing that, which I completely agree with and kind of, actually kind of gets me a bit emotionally when you think about, like that, how you're trying to create this impact and and do that so. So for you personally, why does that? Why does something in the built environment, this kind of work, working in places, people, why for you have you ended up in that place?

Speaker 3:

how long have you got? Um, we've got probably about 25 minutes. Well, the answer is it's not something I ever really um intended to do, uh, so so my background is kind of more on the policy and politics side of things. I don't actually have any qualifications in real estate. I was working at Think Tank when I actually met someone that worked it was actually a Christian Wakefield at the time who sort of said have you ever thought about, you know, maybe, working in the real estate sector? And'll be honest with you, I didn't really know what that was. Um particularly, I was kind of in my mid-20s at the time. Um, both my parents were head teachers. I know this explains a lot about me for those that know me, but um didn't even really know the private sector world that much. It was just almost this whole thing. That was just never even remotely on my radar.

Speaker 3:

Um studied religious studies at university. So again, not particularly uh, opening the door to an immediate career, apart from the obvious choices, and I think for me, I think probably one of the one of the catalysts in it was, um, one of the first kind of internships I actually got, and this probably ages me a bit in that I graduated at a time where you couldn't really get any jobs whatsoever and actually I couldn't even really get an internship. I remember literally feeling like I was probably couldn't even give my work or labour away for free. But I did end up getting an internship um, and that was working um for a community organization looking at the impact of the riots in Tottenham, trying to understand a bit around why they happened, and it was a citizen-led inquiry. So the whole point was obviously about going out and engaging directly with people.

Speaker 3:

I grew up in quite a nice place in South West London. I've not spent that much time in places like Tottenham and actually just walking around and getting to know it and listening to people talk about how they felt, about not just the place where they lived, but actually the places that they didn't necessarily go to, didn't know. Often, in the case surrounding boroughs, the rest of London, um, often for them, I think, felt kind of miles away. That kind of got me thinking a bit about well, more than a bit, I guess just about place, why certain places look certain ways and others don't. So that was, like I said, I think, kind of a catalyst for me and then off the back of that bit of work and that report.

Speaker 3:

I ended up working for David Lammy, so we'll see prior to his quite elevated status that he's got now. But when he was well, he still is MP for Tottenham and part of my role there was again this is now probably about 18 months after the riots thinking again about we've kind of gone past the immediate hand-wringing but going, what next? What does? Is this a regeneration problem? Is this purely a money problem? What's the role of the built environment in addressing some of the challenges that the riots really laid bare? And again just found that absolutely fascinating. So that again kind of sort of started igniting that.

Speaker 3:

And then the rest of it, if I'm honest, was partly just through. I don't want to say accident, but sort accident because to be honest, a lot of the jobs I've got I didn't really know they were a job until they presented themselves to me. So you know, I ended up, for example, working at a london chamber of commerce and industry, um, and one of the roles I took on there was a young sort of general policy type was looking after the Property and Construction Committee which at the time was chaired by Mr Tony Pidgeley. Again, I didn't really know anything about real estate, didn't know who Tony Pidgeley was, obviously soon got to know and again, just having my eyes open to that whole world of what development is and how it happens was just absolutely fascinating and it kind of just kept going from there and got more and more into it, to be honest.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, the answer is it wasn't really a fixed plan, but it's just something I feel. Again, I think you know I'm a generalist, I know a little bit about quite a lot of stuff and I think actually, if you want to be interested in cities and places and what makes them work, that's often quite a good perspective and skill set to have. So it's also, I think for me it's been quite a useful alignment of kind of how I think in terms of being able to, I guess, join dots at quite a high level and then think about the impact of what you do. This thing over here, what does it mean over there? Um, can kind of work yeah, yeah, fascinating, fascinating, um.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for sharing that I didn't know that.

Speaker 3:

I hope that wasn't too long, but no, no, not at all.

Speaker 2:

This is obviously. There's so much in there like I'd love to really dive into, but just like maybe a couple of things then, like so you know that obviously the, the Tottenham riots, was so high profile and was obviously, you know, not a sort of event that anyone wanted to to see, but it did feel like sort of almost like the tip of the ice bow popping out. It was like this kind of metaphor for a lot of kind of social issues and challenges and and things that are not one-dimensional, as you say. That kind of bubbled to the surface and that work that you did there, did you could you kind of put your finger on any of the kind of conclusions of, of that sort of that dive that you did?

Speaker 3:

into it a long time ago now, 15 years ago. I probably still got a copy of the report somewhere, um, but I think a lot about I mean, I'm particularly we spent quite a lot of our time with schools, with young people and kind of with colleges, college students, and I think again, a lot of it was around feeling that they lived in London and they had a lot of the opportunity in London on one level of their doorstep, but also it felt incredibly far away. So and that's something, something that kind of can quite often and it can be quite frustrating, you know you can have when you have conversations with people that you know. Remember we did stuff with kids. Who's saying a lot of them? You know they haven't been to see the river thames and stuff like that, you're not. But you you kind of realize that.

Speaker 3:

And again, this is back to how you often end up thinking about place. You can design for things like proximity or things happening by accident, but actually for some people, going into that ground floor of an office building or going into that new, slightly bougie shopping center maybe doesn't feel actually like it's permissible to them. So the design can do one thing, but actually, unless you're maybe doing more to make people feel like they are welcome or there's something there for them in that space. It's not necessarily going to work. So I think for me that's something, that that thing of you know inclusion is about this. There's an active activity that needs to happen there. It's not really just a design solution.

Speaker 3:

For me and you know I'm sure there's others that would probably disagree with that I'm not from a design background, so it's not naturally where I kind of default to in problem solving, um, but to me that felt you know, that piece I think of almost kind of both feeling not just economically kind of quite excluded, but actually almost just in terms of where they could go, the opportunities they could access, was quite frustrating yeah, yeah, yeah, no, as you say, I think it's um, it's never, it's never just one aspect, and design and physical aspects of place do play into it.

Speaker 2:

You know, you think about some of the the really aspirational, um, optimistic solutions of post-war kind of modernism and designing for cars and streets in the sky and other things, which were very aspirational but created a lot of kind of social impacts and social issues as well. So I think it is a is a factor, but, as you say, um, I think the realization in our sector as well that a lot of it isn't actually, you know, to do with kind of those design decisions or those physical aspects of of place you make. It's about that social infrastructure and that broader environment that people kind of operate in, whether it's, you know, from kind of political environment, you know, distribution of policies and wealth and other principles like that all the way down. And, as you say, it makes it a fascinating industry to be in, to kind of look across the these different sectors.

Speaker 2:

And you know, one thing that I'm I'm struck about is you know we're sat um in a you know a shiny office and avison young's headquarters, which are externally you would say is a, is a big kind of corporate entity, um, who's kind of you know got a lot of different services, but then you're having these kind of really kind of what I would class as really kind of meaningful, really deep, kind of connected conversations about people and place and kind of social issues and other things. So how, how do you, how do you see that for you personally now operating within a business, about that you used the term responsibility earlier how, how, how does some of these kinds of conversations permeate through into, to, to the work that you used the term responsibility earlier. Kind of like, how, how, how does some of these kind of conversations permeate through into, to, to the work that you're, you're?

Speaker 3:

doing. It's a really good question. Um, I will segue a bit there, because I actually mentioned, obviously, the office that we're sitting in. Um, and you may not be aware, we are imminently moving, uh, to the west end, to fitzrovia, and actually one of the things that particularly attracted us about met building where we're moving to, is we have not only our own front door but actually our own shop window. Um, annoyingly, it's still a revolving door, which I have a weird slight hatred of revolving doors, because no one ever looks at revolving doors. Well, that looks welcoming, but it is what it is. But what it does do is it actually gives that visibility to what we do.

Speaker 3:

And actually that's presented some really interesting challenges and questions as well, because people go what do you put in the window of a real estate consultancy? We're not architects, so you know we could put some models we work with architects a lot but actually what about the work that we do where we're doing property management work, or where we're providing rating, advice or getting planning? You know, getting planning through there's so much we do that actually isn't necessarily directly tangible in terms of you know, here's that project we built, which can sometimes be quite hard when it then comes to what to be put in the display or the screen on the front window. So's something that's been, uh, occupying me, um, a fair amount of you know at the moment. But I think in terms of that responsibility piece I mean, look from a very kind of personal perspective I guess there is a point of you know. It's funny, I think, you know, if, if you ask people say that knew me at university, I would not have been picked probably in the top people to end up in what is frankly quite a corporate career in a corporate environment.

Speaker 3:

Um, personally, I find it quite suits me. But secondly, um, to me there's a feeling of you know you need to get involved and if you very much, if there's things you know you don't like or you don't see sitting on the sidelines you know isn't going to be the way of doing that. Um, I'm also very much pragmatic. Um, let's be honest, the world is is as it is in many cases and you know we, what we can influence sometimes, is sometimes helping steer those outcomes, and you can't always do that but you can.

Speaker 3:

For example, you know what things I would love to do more of, and like that we've got a chance to do here is who are those developers or investors that are trying to do things differently? Who are those people that are bringing forward long term and patient capital to make a project work that normally would have been quite difficult, and how can we work with them to help them realize their ambition? Their ambition, that's the stuff that, to me, is personally really exciting. It's getting chance to do that or, with you know, setting up long-term partnerships, for example, between a local authority and a private sector developer, to bring forward really long-term, transformational change.

Speaker 3:

They're the sorts of things where you say, well, it's a responsibility in terms of an outcome, but actually it's, it's helping back to your point those projects that are often quite difficult. It's a responsibility in terms of an outcome, but actually it's it's helping back to your point. Those projects that are often quite difficult. It's where we can apply not just our individual skills that we have here, but actually a lot of the collective skill sets we have at abison young in terms of problem solving that I think start becoming really exciting yeah, yeah, yeah, no, um, really interesting, and it's, coincidentally, a really nice segue onto what I was going to ask you about next, which was exactly that.

Speaker 2:

You know we're both as we discussed here interested and passionate about you know what you typically class as kind of bigger neighborhood scale, complicated regeneration projects that touch different people's lives and different land uses and different parts of the country. So there's a lot of alignment there and one deal we were looking at and you know a number of other deals often, you know, averson Young's name comes up very, very early on in projects, whether it's strategic land or whether you've done an outline viability assessment for a landowner who's preparing to sell, and then you've got your planning advice and you know so. So you're, um, you know quite early on in some of those conversations, when they're probably not even a project, they're just kind of a strategic land thing, and then you do go kind of all the way through to to buildings, so, so maybe like like a how-to question, like how do we go about kind of realizing some of these big policy objectives, some of these, these social change, some larger regeneration projects, in that climate that you've just that you've just mentioned, from your perspective?

Speaker 3:

it's a big question um yeah, I mean, look.

Speaker 3:

Firstly, I think you're bang on in terms of the role that we will quite often play at those early stages of almost what's the art of the possible um and again, when the face of that whether it's you know, an existing site that needs dramatically rethinking, or maybe is that you know mythical, nice, clean site where you're wondering, you know, what would it look like to put 500 homes here, et cetera. The approach that you know we will often play in that is, yes, again, the design bit matters. You'll want your master planner doing that, but sometimes, maybe even before you've got to a master planner or alongside a master planner, again, it's commercially what's going to work? What's their demand for? What's the infrastructure set up? What do we know is going to be happening in the area in terms of employment growth? All of those sorts of pieces. What's viable, what isn't? What's viable, what isn't? How does it tie into policies and even, potentially, funding available at various levels? How's it going to play in terms of attracting investment?

Speaker 3:

So almost that you're thinking enough about all those kind of key success factors in many ways before you're getting so far down the line of a master plan that you're then going here. We've got this great project and people are going, we have a great. It's not really deliverable and it becomes, you know, another, another master plan, that that sits on the shelf. So I think you know it is really exciting when you can get in early at that you know, kind of shaping stage and you've got colleagues and I almost in a way wouldn't probably want to speak for them, but who have been incredibly instrumental at that very early stage in taking what maybe felt like a either an impossible project or one that just people didn't really know what to do with and, you know, saw it through into something successful. So I think there's that piece, I think the um, the kind of how do we go about doing that and having impact, the wide impact, is a really interesting one to me and I'm slightly it's probably like against I should say it's very much a personal position that I think we do have to sometimes be um cognizant of the fact that, yes, we work with developers, yes, we're in real estate, we create the built environment, but actually we cannot and should not, especially from the private sector, be expected or look to the private sector to solve every single ill, and it's often in doing that that we end up with getting into situations that don't particularly work.

Speaker 3:

Um, so I think, actually sometimes being not so much humble but again probably quite pragmatic, about, well, here's the things that this new development are going to do, but you know what? It's not necessarily going to overnight, anyway, radically change the health outcomes or the employment outcomes of these people. And often, I think, the frustration sometimes with development or even developers or also local authorities championing development, is that there's maybe sometimes a bit of an oversell of what that impact could be and that's probably sometimes almost more damaging than probably not having lent into it quite as much. I'm aware that's maybe not a particularly common held view, I don't know, but I think sometimes actually just being a bit more straightforward about what it actually is, you're bringing forward with a site, what it will and won't do, what might happen day two, day three, day four, because, let's be honest, a lot of the time when we've seen the real long-term benefits of regeneration, they're not necessarily the ones that have been envisaged. Um, at day one of a project, and that's not a bad thing, but it's being able to let that project grow and have a bit of room. That said, I think and you know, you'll know this probably better well as much as, if not better, than me we are now operating an environment where it's beholden on anyone involved in any sort of development project to make the case every single which way that that development should happen, and often to be really quite specific about what those outcomes are.

Speaker 3:

There's to me a really interesting question and I genuinely don't know the answer to this which is is that helping us make better places? I don't know, um. Is it genuinely pushing us to do the right things or do things better, um, or is it that the people that always would have done the right stuff are probably doing the right stuff and those that didn't are finding some way to work around it? I don't know. Well, probably.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the way that the majority of positive movement can happen is not necessarily from the early adopters or the leaders. It's actually from, like, the majority, but you do kind of need the leaders to then progress. The majority and then obviously, um, you know, the, the laggards or the bad actors whatever you want to call it in the industry will, will hopefully follow as well. So I think I think all we can really do is, as you say, to try and lead in a positive sense and try and do the best we can. You know, that's partly what this platform's about.

Speaker 2:

It's about, you know, giving voice and allowing long-form conversations to talk about issues that are not simple and are not pithy as much as our culture these days would like it to be a 140 character tweet or something. It's not really about that. It's like we need to talk about these things and work through them and, and hopefully through that leadership, we can, we can do that and um, and then you know you touched on there the, the aspects of um. You know public and private as well, and I know that's something we've talked about off mic before. So have you got any kind of um insights or thoughts or maybe calls to action around that public private thing, particularly when we're talking in the regen space um, particularly calls to action, probably do.

Speaker 3:

If I think about it. I mean, again, it's quite a kind of core part of what we do here at ay in terms of often like you said, often at the early stage being involved in that for one of the better term kind of either match making sometimes it could be a specific, actually, you know, running that procurement process to go out and find a partner or it can be setting up the structure that can enable that partnership to happen and evolve over the years, particularly thinking about, you know, financially, how does that work? So again, you have something that can withstand market cycles, big changes in demand, or again, maybe what was from envisaged at the beginning of a project, when everyone kind of sat around the table. So it's something that we are kind of incredibly passionate about in terms of what we do. But I think there's also the fact that from a private sector side as well, given the context of the UK, the understanding of the public sector is absolutely critical to any private sector project because of the way our planning system works. It's something that I think is really positive for us as well.

Speaker 3:

Um, and one thing that I'll often, you know, try and remind people, I guess is, rather than seeing them, as you know, complete dichotomy between the two.

Speaker 3:

Is it actually, particularly when it comes to being able to give really good advice, actually that virtuous circle of knowing what is an investable proposition, knowing what occupiers might be interested in, whatever you're potentially looking at bringing forward, what's happening with markets, what else is coming to market at the same time, all that kind of transactional and investment expertise puts us in a better position to advise public sector.

Speaker 3:

But similarly, when it then comes to advising the private sector, knowing public sector policymaking processes, all of that again actually puts us in a stronger position as well. So, very much seeing it as something that's, I guess, that's mutually enforcing, rather than two kind of separate parts of the business or two separate entities of how real estate development happens. And I think that's something that is quite a UK specific thing, again, I think, because of the nature of how we, you know not just actually get things through planning, but actually often how we fund a lot of our development. You know the use of, you know grant systems, or I remember when I joined here it was levelling up fund time. So you know all really understanding that policy aspect, how to make investment cases that work as much for an investment committee on a private sector side but actually also for the treasury, is a really quite unique skill set, and a really one.

Speaker 2:

Super insightful and you know, for us as a private developer, you know, one of the values I see in yourselves is being that kind of connector and that conduit between you know, opportunity and skill, if you want to put it that way, or skill and capital, in terms both public and private sector.

Speaker 2:

If we can get to a position where there's there's more trust, there's more kind of um, values alignment and kind of objectives, alignment, um, and not and not necessarily just saying everyone agrees on everything, but you, you understand each other's positions uh, I think that would be be super helpful and like, just from from my perspective, you know we want to be doing large-scale regeneration projects for everyday people, uh, in places where development viability is is tricky and um, my plea to anyone listening from the, the um, the public sector, would be to to hopefully go into conversations with an element of kind of trust that there is um, there is common ground there and um, to try and shortcut some of the kind of back and forth that you get about. Um, can we trust each other? Is that this kind of um, alignment, um, and I think that will help to create better projects and better places. Really, um, because it is very difficult, you know frankly, at the moment, to make regeneration happen.

Speaker 3:

Whichever side or whichever position, whichever hat you wear, mean, I think that is a really there's two really important observations in there for me, which is firstly, the point of actually understanding what drives one another. And again, I think that's often because the kind of crude stereotypes you get either way don't necessarily work, or also because, again, you know, we see this on both sides. You, you know, we'll hear a lot, for example, of investors talking about the importance of long-term capital, social value, really impactful investment, what they want to do, and they'll say that on every single platform you give them. And then you look at where a lot of their money is going and it's going to relatively standard beds and sheds. There's nothing wrong with beds and sheds, they're an incredibly important part, you know, of most a lot of people's pension funds and investment funds, but actually also, you know, built environment, you know, but actually there often can sometimes be this mismatch between what is heard and said very loudly to actually what is often happening in terms of what money is going. And look, there's nothing wrong with that. It's also because a lot of these investors, you know, they also have their fiduciary duties as well.

Speaker 3:

So again, I think that's the thing where they can come to get quite frustrating, because you do hear a lot of rhetoric and narrative that sounds wonderful, but actually how do you deliver those? And there are examples of it happening. But we know, you know they're often more difficult and I think for me it's. You know, I've never really worked in this sector at a time where things were really easy, um. So when I sort of sit with a lot of people they're like, ah, it's a cycle, like oh, things will come back.

Speaker 3:

Um, admittedly, you know, I was at, you know, cushman not that long ago, but I was in a slightly bizarre sort of one woman think tank role that I wasn't really particularly engaged with what was happening in the market in granular level.

Speaker 3:

So to me this idea that you've really got to work at it is kind of what I've always really known, to be honest. But I think back to your point that for either side now no one has easy, and I think that's the other thing that's frustrating on the private sector side is when they're, you know, when you're kind of hearing we need the private. That you all know. You know intimately that even where there's a will, it's not involved in this partnership here because often, increasingly now, the risk that the private sector is being asked to put in is really quite high, maybe compared to when things were in a slightly more straightforward environment. So I think that that balance has changed slightly and I think that's quite frustrating on both sides, but actually increasingly, I think, for the private sector that are saying look, we're not actually in a position here.

Speaker 2:

We've got endless pots of money to crack on on and do this yeah, yeah, no, exactly, um, well, well, I'm really, you know, I'm still really optimistic and positive about those kind of partnerships and I think they're fundamental to to deliver the, the targets and also, um, everything that we're all looking to do, I think, collectively, within the industry. So, um, keen to, yeah, explore how we can, we can do that together and some of those connecting roles I think you very well placed to to do as well and, um, so, maybe, maybe, just to end like a slightly, probably quite a difficult question to answer, I've thought about, based on your story that you gave. So you know you're sat here, I sat here today on this, uh, your former self before you, you got into real estate. You know, what would that version of Kat think about this version of?

Speaker 3:

Kat Horrified, absolutely horrified, genuinely. Um, no, I think, yeah, I think probably pretty surprised, Um, but the one thing you know, again, I think back to that point of um actually getting involved, back to that point I think in some ways maybe not surprised that I'm not one of those people that's good at just sitting there complaining about something and then not getting involved, um, so in many ways maybe not that surprised on that front, um, but yeah, probably university me would have been a little bit horrified that I've ended up, uh, working the city, but what can I say? I I really enjoyified that I've ended up working in the city, but what can I say? I really enjoy it, whether you're talking about it or the city or the broader corporate world.

Speaker 3:

But actually being on, you know, on a, on a serious note, I think, being in a position where we get to work with people wanting to do, people wanting to do most often meaningful and impactful things with their money or with, you know, local authorities, combined authorities, regions, looking at how they can best bring forward projects in an increasingly challenging environment and actually often, you know, for me, again back to what I kind of really enjoy of connecting different people for problem solving and again at a time in the sector where to do pretty much any project right now, you need a really broad range of skills involved, right, and actually the broader that range of skills gets, the more important those people that can understand.

Speaker 3:

I think a bit of that and very much often the role of a dm right is to do that, is to bring together and orchestrate all those inputs and to make sure you're still on track and to be able to do that for projects that then you know, hopefully last, and also to work, you know, in a role that I have here where you know I'm not. I'm not on the tools as such, but a lot of what I like to think I do is make it easier for my colleagues to do an even better job than they already do and to identify clients who are really exciting and working on really important projects like that's a fantastic job to have yeah, yeah, definitely, and I think maybe you've been a bit bit hard on yourself there from your younger self, I think.

Speaker 3:

I think you're.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know you. I didn't know you, but I think you know you, but I think you know. This conversation, I think, is testament to the fact that you know there are some really great people in the industry who really care about you, know what they do and why they do it, and you know, I think, that's something definitely that we both share and is really important to why we get out of bed in the morning.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for spending the time today, kat to share a bit more about that, your story and everything in between, right, thank you. Thanks, cat. 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.