All to play for – but the Green Book still serves from Treasury
Us economists live sheltered lives, with an abacus in one hand and a well-worn copy of the Green Book in the other. So, when a Spending Review and a Green Book consultation land on the same day, it’s basically our version of a solar eclipse. Now I’ve fully recovered from all this interplanetary excitement, I thought it only fair I attempted to unpick what the GB review findings mean for us economic development folks. Evolution, not revolution When the Chancellor announced the Green Book review back in January there was much excited chatter in certain quarters – principally north of the Watford Gap – that HMT was about to completely rewrite the rules governing public investment orthodoxy. Although I don’t profess to be prophetic – my wife holds that talent – my blogs did pour a sizeable glass of cold water on such optimism bias (see what I did there?). The main takeaway was that the review had “not found conclusive evidence that the methodology set out in the Green Book is biased towards certain regions”. These are not my words but lifted directly from the HMT findings. Whilst a simple sentence, it’s also quite telling. It’s worth remembering that the argument often disseminating from some politicians was that it was biased towards certain regions…namely London and the Southeast. With Wimbledon just around the corner, HMT have seemingly lobbed that argument back over the net. Rumours fade, land value uplift rises Avid followers of my blogging – all two of you – will recall that when politicians talk of “bias” they are really pointing their fingers to an abstract economic modelling technique called land value uplift. Hold on! Hold on! Please stay with me, this matters to getting your project approved. Very briefly – I promise – land value uplift or LVU for us Green Book fanatics, is the government’s preferred method of assessing benefit from land and property schemes. If you want to get your regeneration scheme over the line, you need to make sure there’s sufficient “LVU” or other benefits to get a good enough Benefit Cost Ratio, or BCR. However, it’s worth noting that the focus now is often more on those external benefits such as wider area impacts rather than LVU. Okay, I’ll stop now. So, what did HMT say about “LVU” – the longstanding bugbear of practitioners with depressed land values? In their findings it stated that the “government’s approach to assessing land value uplift does not skew decisions in favour of more affluent areas, at the expense of less affluent areas.” A-ha! The king is dead. Long live the king. Guidance updated, orthodoxy untouched? Whilst there was a much-welcomed discussion around the need to emphasise place-based analysis, the constant over-emphasis on BCRs, plus the long and complicated guidance (nothing to see here, constable), it is telling that after cutting through the smog, HMT have seemingly backed the core Green Book methodology (for built development schemes at least). I will reiterate that this does not diminish the recommendations – which are to be saluted – but simply to playback the HMT words. A new Green Book is pencilled in for 2026. Game, set and match for HMT orthodoxy? Simon Dancer is a Board Member of the iED, and a Director at AMION Consulting. Read Green Book Review 2025: Findings and actions.
Oxfordshire Business Awards
AMION were out in force at the Oxfordshire Business Awards last night, celebrating the excellence and innovation of Oxfordshire-based businesses. Coming hot on the heels of the Spending Review, the awards provided a timely reminder that the Oxford-Cambridge Arc remains firmly in the spotlight as a key driver of UK growth. At the stunning John Henry Brookes Building, our very own Matt Budd and Simon Dancer (he’s the one channelling Colonel Sanders🍗) caught up with local business leaders. The message was loud and clear: delivering on the Arc’s ambitious potential will require serious government backing.
Spending Review – Beyond the Headlines
After months of tense political wrangling and a few moments worthy of Malcolm Tucker himself, the Spending Review has finally landed. In the latest version of our newsletter, AMION’s spending review veteran, Graham Russell, cuts through the noise to explain what it really means for economic development. Essential reading for anyone working in place-based growth, regeneration or regional growth. Read Graham’s take below and sign up for future newsletters:
AMION at the Fringe (and not the comedy kind!)
We’re excited to be joining the UKREiiF fringe this Tuesday for a roundtable hosted by our friends at Hive Projects. Peter Alford, Director (and champion of all things Place Economics), will be jumping into the discussion on how public-private partnerships can unlock sites and deliver the kind of development that communities actually need – homes, jobs and better places to live and work. Yes, the economic environment is challenging – but that’s exactly why these conversations matter. We’re looking forward to sharing ideas and insights with more than 20 fellow experts from across the health, housing, regeneration and commercial sectors. Big thanks to Hive Projects for bringing everyone together – and we’re looking forward to catching up with familiar faces from Ion Property Developments Limited, Cityheart , Placefirst, LCR Property, Wirral Council, Liverpool City Council, Sefton Council and Rochdale Development Agency. Please do get in touch with Peter Alford if you’d like to catch up with him on the fringe!
AMION appointed to Nottingham Consultancy Panel
Sound the horns… AMION has been officially appointed to Nottingham City Council’s Economic Development and Communities Dynamic Purchasing System. We may not ride through the glen with bows and arrows, but we do come armed with bold strategies and a merry team ready to champion communities! We look forward to working in partnership with Nottingham over the duration of the contract. If you want to discuss the exciting work we’re doing in Nottingham and across the wider East Midlands, please do get in touch!
Ambitious plans for Aston Villa Football Club
Exciting news from Aston Villa Football Club as it announces ambitious plans to redevelop the iconic North Stand and increase Villa Park’s capacity to over 50,000. We’ve been working closely with Aston Villa to assess the economic impact of the proposals – helping to ensure the redevelopment brings lasting benefits for the local community, economy, and wider region. This work follows on from our earlier involvement in making the case for upgrades to nearby Witton Station, a key part of improving matchday and visitor access to the stadium. It’s fantastic to see this next chapter for Villa Park begin to unfold – and we’re delighted to have played a role in helping bring the vision to life. Read more from the Club: https://lnkd.in/eepQ3fCN #AstonVilla #VillaPark #EconomicImpact #PlaceMaking #Regeneration #Infrastructure #UrbanDevelopment
Value of Heritage-led Regeneration for England’s High Streets Revealed by AMION Evaluation
Historic England has today (Monday 17th March 2025) published AMION’s independent evaluation of the High Streets Heritage Action Zone. Developed in response to the changing use of high streets, Historic England’s innovative, heritage-led, solution demonstrates how the loosening of the grip of retail on the high street can be an opportunity to reimagine them as vibrant centres of their community. Led by Historic England, in partnership with Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the programme ran from 2020-24 and unlocked the potential of 67 historic high streets across England. Recognising cultural heritage as a catalyst for regeneration, the programme was designed around three core objectives: The High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme transformed high streets into vibrant community spaces by creating new partnerships, empowering communities, and celebrating local culture through heritage. AMION’s innovative evaluation tests new ways to measure the benefits of heritage-led regeneration and assesses long-term value. The evaluation shows that investing in historic places stimulates growth by creating jobs and attracting investment, as well as generating a renewed a sense of local pride. The programme has helped to reimagine high streets as cherished community spaces, attractive to both local people and visitors. Evaluation Results The programme had three key strands of delivery: The programme was delivered during a time of uncertainty, from the Covid-19 pandemic to geopolitical instability and economic pressures. Rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and evolving net-zero targets added to the complexity as the programme had to adapt to these challenges. Attracting private sector investment was particularly challenging in these circumstances. Responding to these challenges, the programme’s impact was significant: Historic England will use the lessons from the High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme to shape place-based heritage investments, ensuring that heritage continues to be an effective driver of economic, social, and cultural renewal. The programme’s approach has brought regeneration to where it’s needed most, proving that heritage is not just about the past – it’s a powerful catalyst for future growth. Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England said: “The evidence is clear: the High Streets Heritage Action Zone programme demonstrates that heritage-led regeneration can create impactful and sustainable change in a way that improves people’s lives. The evaluation highlights a new approach to ensuring our high streets can adapt and grow to support our local communities. By sharing this report we hope others can benefit from the lessons we have learned over the past four years, working across 67 high streets, so that future high streets can also be strengthened, creating economic growth and becoming much valued places for communities to use and enjoy for years to come.” Read the evaluation report here: https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/heritage-action-zones/regenerating-historic-high-streets/evaluation-report/
Under the bonnet of the Green Book review: will this really “rip up the rules” on regional investment?
Green Book: if you’re a film buff, it represents the Oscar winning screenplay by Pete Farrelly. For medical folk, it provides the latest information on vaccines. But for us economic development professionals, the Green Book often means only one thing…how do I get my project approved? When I was a young cub starting my career in Whitehall back in the 1990s, and Joseph Lowe was still roaming the corridors of Treasury, I was given a forest of paper documents to devour. One of the tomes was a gleaming, bound(!) copy of the Green Book (to the unversed, yes, it’s actually green, dark green to be precise). Though the years have inevitably meant less paper copies are in circulation, and thankfully less woodland is destroyed, it’s importance in the public sphere has only soared. Since time immemorial, a project sponsor’s heart will skip a beat with those dreaded words “is this proposal Green Book-compliant?” Back to the present day, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has initiated a review of the Green Book. To use Rachel Reeves exact words “(we) will review the Green Book in order to support decisions on public investment across the country, including outside London and the Southeast.” Though the Chancellor hasn’t released formal terms of reference for the review, the statement “including outside London and the Southeast” is rather telling. Certainly, that’s the message being broadcast to the northern heartlands, with organs like the Yorkshire Post proclaiming that “(changing) Treasury rules around infrastructure project spending could unlock billions of pounds of investment for the North.” Thumbing through my dusty files, I managed to locate the Treasury slides outlining the scope for the 2020 Green Book review. It was noted at the time that any re-assessment should, to quote directly “(address the alleged) systematic bias towards London and the Southeast” plus, and rather emotively, the “tyranny of BCRs” (Benefit Cost Ratios). Sound familiar? So, what’s at the heart of the issue? To answer this question, we need to ask another one, this time rhetorical. Surely one of the accepted roles of the state is redistribution and, by association, regeneration? As economic development specialists, we know the market alone will not bring forward some of the more challenging corners of the country. It would be naive to suggest a private sector developer looks at, say, Burnley in the same way as, perhaps, Sevenoaks. We know that depressed values and challenging viability mean developers often need the public sector to take a supporting role to break the stalemate. The crux of the argument is, disappointingly, rather techy. So, grab a strong coffee and buckle-up. Over the years, an appraisal technique emanating from our transport cousins and their sacred TAG guidance has migrated across to economic development. What is this technique I hear you cry? Land value uplift, of course! The practice used by DfT analysts to capture the uptick in values due to road improvements, is now the principal economic benefit used to justify a property-based renewal project, be it in Burnley or anywhere else. The gripe from Metro Mayors and others is that land values – especially housing ones – are significantly higher in the south of the country, than, say, in the north. This means a Green Book orthodoxy which relies exclusively on “LVU” will always have a natural bent towards Sevenoaks rather than Burnley. To give you a flavour of the difference in residential values, using MHCLG’s own ‘Land value estimates for policy appraisal’ it recommends for Burnley using £370,000 per hectare. Whilst for Sevenoaks, the same indicator stands at an eyewatering £8,300,000 per hectare. Those good at mental arithmetic will know that’s a factor of 22:1. This means by appraising exclusively LVU, any Green Book exercise looking to choose between funding the same housing scheme in these two areas, the Sevenoaks of the country will always ‘score’ higher as the land values are in a different stratosphere. If this wasn’t enough, critics turn to the other side of the benefit cost equation, namely the public cost denominator. It’s not a great intellectual leap to suggest that areas with low values and tough viability will naturally need a bigger injection of grant to get them over the line. Add to this, the legacy of de-industrialisation that blights swaths of Northern England, it’s not hard to see why the likes of Steve Rotherham (Metro Mayor for Liverpool) have been pushing for a rethink in Whitehall. Does this tell the whole story? Your red-blooded economist will tell you that values/prices send out vital signals in an economy, and the land market is no different. The Southeast needs more housing because this is where the demand is, which is duly manifested in the higher prices. Why use scarce public resources building homes where people don’t want to live, as the mantra goes. Counter to this argument is, of course, one of renewal and equity, as played out a moment ago. In fact, there are already Green Book techniques that appraisers can use to capture and monetise “externalities”. Have another swig of coffee, we’re approaching the summit. Treasury – and MHCLG – boffins would argue that a good Green Book business case would study the direct benefit of new development, as captured by the usual LVU calculus. But these same experts also recognise that regeneration can often lead to a broad range of further external impacts i.e. externalities. For example, new housing or employment floorspace, public realm improvements and facilities that benefit existing communities (as well as new residents). These will not be fully captured through a simple LVU assessment. The Green Book makes it clear that the appraisal of social value should consider not just economic market efficiency but overall social welfare efficiency (hang in there, one final push). This is echoed in MHCLG’s appraisal guidance (we’ll discuss that guide another day!) which highlights the need to capture all the benefits and costs of an intervention. This includes all externalities in the form of placemaking and regeneration, health,
