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In this episode, Paul sits down with Tony Vickers, Chairman of West Park’s Council, who has had a long career in land use, planning and property development. Together, they discuss how land value is created, the case for land value taxation, and what it will take to solve the UK’s housing crisis.
Paul and Tony explore why collaboration between developers, policymakers, and communities matters, drawing on international examples and hard-won experience to reveal what really drives land values—and who should benefit.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Traditional adversarial relationships in property development are holding us back. Collaborative approaches between policymakers and developers are essential for addressing housing shortages.
- The value of land is significantly influenced by the surrounding community and public investment, e.g. infrastructure, amenities, and shared demand, not so much by the owner. A land value tax would share the fruits of the value increase more fairly.
- Taxing land value, instead of just housing transactions, encourages development, can fund local services, and make housing fairer. Tony shares the details of the exact mechanisms that make this happen.
- The complexity of the UK system has led to sector consolidation at all levels, including with contractors. SME´s struggle too much to compete, simplification is part of the solution.
- Continued dialogue to ensure all stakeholders and lawmakers have a clear understanding of the challenges and joint advocacy for policy reforms are vital to solving the housing crisis.
BEST MOMENTS
"A landowner does not create the value of the land. It’s everybody else around it."
"We should be thinking of land as something that we all own the value, because we’re all helping to create it."
"Developers are behaving perfectly rationally, doing as they do. The government has got to step in and change the tax system."
"If you tax an event or a transaction, you are deterring that event or transaction, which is why stamp duty is such a daft tax."
"We’ve got to be much more collaborative and try and work together, despite it being competitive."
"There is a real housing crisis. There is a real environmental crisis, and yet they’ve got to turn a profit on building those houses and protecting the environment."
House of Commons Report https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/49932/documents/268911/default/ British Housebuilders History Analysis by Fred Wellings https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/british-housebuilders-history-analysis/author/wellings-fred/
ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years of experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound, award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.
CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
