UKREiiF 2025: Lessons from Leeds

That’s a wrap on UKREiiF 2025 – the best yet in all of the four years we’ve attended. The sun shone down in Leeds this week as we joined developers, businesses, investors, mayors and local authority leaders to discuss ways to unlock investment and drive regeneration and development across the UK. Attendance was at a record high, which contributed to the buzzy atmosphere and general sense that investors and business are putting their best foot forward despite sustained economic challenges.

Our key takeaways from this year’s conference:

In the context of English devolution, Mayors are playing an increasingly important role in decision-making and attracting investment into their places. That makes them crucial stakeholders for delivering change on the ground.

The government has set out its blueprint for devolution, and the direction of travel is clear. Rayner used her conference keynote speech to once again herald the government’s plans for a ‘devolution revolution’, with more mayors in England having access to more flexible pots of money for their regions. There was no shortage of conversations among delegates about the potential positives for authorities who can operate with greater investment and more responsibility over local decisions. But, industry now wants to see concrete action from government and local leaders and not just rhetoric.

The challenge for businesses is ensuring they are well placed to command the attention from both local and national leaders and speak the right language.

Collaboration takes on a new meaning in an increasingly fragmented power set-up in England.

UKREiiF is a prime opportunity for mayoral and local authority teams to engage with businesses and investors, and we saw willingness on both sides to forge ahead with change and work closely with central government to ensure projects can be delivered. There was lots of discussion about the power of combining public sector resources with private sector expertise to deliver significant returns for shareholders and how those partnerships can help No10 deliver on its ambitious policy agenda. The real test will be in how the relationship between industry and local and national governments evolves during the devolution process.

Reform is in the early stages of setting up its policy function, which means there’s a window to influence thinking and get on the front foot with engagement.

We heard directly from the new Greater Lincolnshire Mayor about her plans for the region. What’s clear is there is a long way to go before thinking is matured – and that is where the opportunity lies. We are starting to see some of Dame Andrea Jenkyns’ early priorities take shape, including establishing a regional skills body to ensure parity of esteem between vocational, technical and academic qualifications, develop plans for a New Town and create a transport body which replicates Andy Burnham’s Bee Network.

But we know that Reform is still coming to terms with its new power across Westminster and the regions, and it must now formulate its own policy platform. During that process, the Party wants to hear from industry to understand where its focus should sit, but achieving cut through will depend on whether a business can demonstrate alignment with Reform’s core value and beliefs.

There is still a yawning gap between those places looking for capital and those with capital to deploy.

There are a lot of projects being put forward by local places and there is a lot of deployable capital out there – so you’d be forgiven for wondering why more deals aren’t done. Well, there are issues. Misaligned interests, different time horizons, perception problems, capacity constraints, capability constraints, unrealistic assessments of viability and plenty of other issues come into play…which is why we enjoy working with both our place and our investor clients in helping them to develop shared understanding and a sense of joint purpose and mutual benefit.

Henham Strategy has worked with organisations across the public and private sectors to help navigate local and national politics to achieve commercial outcomes. Get in touch to find out more.

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