Colliers | Colliers International reacts to SCR’s devolution plans

A consensus is reached after years of impasse

Earlier this week, Mayor Dan Jarvis and the four leaders of South Yorkshire’s local authorities – Cllr Julie Dore, Cllr Sir Steve Houghton, Mayor Ros Jones and Cllr Chris Read – reached a consensus, after years of impasse, on the way forward for devolution for the Sheffield City Region.

The plans they set out ask the Government to unlock millions of pounds in funding for the Sheffield City Region, on the understanding that each authority is able to move to other devolution arrangements at the end of Mayor Dan Jarvis’s current term of office in 2022 – if they wish to do so.

Guy Gilfillan, Director and Head of Colliers International in Sheffield, said: “The proposed solution represents a common sense approach given the similarity of the local economies and their reliance on one another commercially and culturally.

“The Sheffield City Region is supported by strong foundations – Doncaster is one of the UK’s primary logistics locations and has land coming through the local plan. Barnsley has major land releases coming through its approved Local Plan. Rotherham and Sheffield are home to the globally significant Advanced Manufacturing Park and the 2,000-acre Advanced Manufacturing Improvement District, while Sheffield City Centre is seeing more tower cranes than at any time in modern history.

“To see local authorities working together to come to a consensus on this important issue is great to see and the distribution of the significant levels of Government funding released through this arrangement will have substantial advantages for the regional property market.”

Walter Boettcher, Chief Economist, and Director of Research and Forecasting, Colliers International, added: “Given the local focus of the Sheffield City Region in pulling together Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham as an integrated metro region, especially through the promotion of the Global Innovation Corridor, pursuing a Greater Yorkshire agenda now would have dissipated this initial effort.

“Postponing final decision-making on Greater Yorkshire until the next Mayoral election will provide time to entrench the plans and development that is already underway, and perhaps demonstrate the speed and efficacies of working with locally-focussed coherent units which can later be integrated through infrastructural improvements into larger economic regions.”

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Walter Boettcher

Head of Research and Economics

Research and Forecasting

London - West End

+44 20 7344 6581

+447824691586

As Head of Research and Economics at global property advisors Colliers based in London, I lead a team of researchers identifying timely research topics and directing research and forecasting outputs. I have 25+ years of UK and European property industry experience and extensive expertise across a wide range of sectors and related industries. I participate regularly in industry panel discussions, but am focused more on direct client engagement with institutions, property companies, banks, and private investors. A regular media commentator, I have a wide range of national publication and broadcast experience. I joined Colliers International in August 2007 after several years at a private property company where I was responsible for managing a mixed portfolio of London residential, retail and office assets. Previously, I worked in a few London property advisory firms, a geodemographic company as well as a few youthful sojourns in the US offshore oil industry, local government and entertainment business. I am an economics graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and received a PhD from the Faculty of Science at University College London. I am a member of the London Property Economics Forum and Society of Property Researchers.

Perhaps best known for my alternative take on property economics and investment, I am a keen proponent of UK regional development and infrastructure investment.

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Guy Gilfillan

Director – Head of Northern Development Consulting

National Offices

Leeds

+44 7885 033433

+ 44 (0) 7885 033433

Guy has been involved with the commercial property market in the North of England for 36 years, initially as an agent, and more recently as a development consultant and client manager responsible for the provision of strategic property advice across a range of service lines. His clients include property companies, corporates, developers , public sector organisations and funding institutions. Guy has also worked client-side as the Northern Acquisitions Director for Regus Plc.

Guy has also been involved in numerous large scale development schemes (eg. Princes Exchange-Leeds , Asvanced Manufacturing Park-South Yorkshire, Digital Campus-Sheffield and Holbeck Urban Village, Leeds). He has also handled some of the regions largest land disposals (eg. 200+ acres for the NHS, 33 acres to a global aero-engine manufacturer and recently, 8 acres in Leeds' South Bank).

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