PUBLIC SECTOR PLACEMAKING Why the public sector now has a defining role in the next phase of mixed-use regeneration

Alex McKinlay

Alex is the head of the public sector land team at Savills and provides development strategies and disposal advice to clients across the UK. With over 20 years’ experience in the public sector development market, Alex joined Savills in 2016 to operate across the UK business, working with London and regional teams to deliver procurement, agency and consultancy services to a wide range of public sector bodies. Alex is an expert in The Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) procurement and sales, having led teams on many high profile projects, including the Olympic Park, and Chelsea Barracks. Other specialisms include developing workable overage clauses and the Charities Act.

“From infrastructure and planning certainty to patient capital and long-term delivery, public-private partnerships will be central to creating the resilient, mixed-use city centres needed for the future.” Alex urges the public sector to step in where there are viability issues across all sectors and: “the public sector has a major opportunity not just to support mixed-use regeneration, but to actively shape it.” 

The need for public private partnerships

When I look across the UK’s regional cities, I see a new phase of urban regeneration taking shape - one defined not by a lack of demand, but by the challenge of turning demand into viable, deliverable, mixed-use places. Over the past two decades, city centres have become far more desirable places to live, work and socialise, and the relationship between residential, commercial and leisure uses has become more intertwined than ever. But if the next cycle of growth is to happen at scale, I believe the public sector has an increasingly important role to play - not simply as regulator, but as convenor, catalyst and long-term partner.

What strikes me most is that the underlying fundamentals are strong. Build to Rent has overtaken private sale in many city-centre markets, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) has expanded rapidly, co-living is emerging, office occupiers are concentrating on best-in-class space, and retail is evolving through experience, placemaking and diversification. Yet across all of these sectors, viability pressures are becoming the defining constraint. Construction costs remain high, borrowing costs have increased, and in many cases capital values have not kept pace. In other words, the issue is not whether people want vibrant urban centres - it is whether the market can deliver them unaided. That is precisely where I see the greatest opportunity for the public sector.

One of the clearest messages from Savills’ latest research reports – “UK Cities: a mixed-use perspective” - is that successful regeneration is increasingly a partnership exercise. Institutional investors are already bringing patient capital, long-term income horizons and a placemaking mindset, while government policy continues to support a “brownfield first” approach that prioritises urban intensification and mixed-use destinations. That combination feels significant. Public bodies can create the conditions for growth through land assembly, infrastructure, planning certainty and targeted funding, while private capital can drive delivery, scale and operational expertise. In a more challenging viability environment, that public-private alignment is no longer a nice-to-have; it is central to unlocking development. 

Some city examples

Manchester offers one of the strongest examples of what this can look like in practice. The city’s regeneration story has been supported not just by market confidence, but by consistent strategic leadership from Manchester City Council and the Greater Manchester mayoral office. That leadership has helped sustain international investor confidence and underpinned major long-term masterplans that are extending the city centre. What stands out to me in particular is the Combined Authority’s Good Growth Fund - a circa £2bn funding pot drawing on the integrated settlement, government investment, the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, and borrowing to deliver growth across Greater Manchester. The fact that office and Build to Rent schemes are already benefiting from this patient equity capital suggests a model of public-private partnership that other combined authorities may well seek to emulate.

Birmingham tells a slightly different but equally compelling story. There, the arrival of HS2 at Curzon Street is described as one of the most transformative infrastructure-led regeneration opportunities in the country. Even before trains are running, HS2 has acted as a catalyst for development in Eastside and Digbeth, helping reshape the latter from a largely industrial area into a creative and media hub with new residential neighbourhoods, studios, public realm improvements and mixed-use schemes. That matters because it shows how public infrastructure investment can change market perception and private-sector confidence. I also think Birmingham demonstrates how civic investment in culture and public space can strengthen the commercial proposition of a place, as seen around Paradise, Snow Hill, Arena Central and the wider area around the Library of Birmingham.

Bristol, to my mind, highlights another key opportunity for the public sector: enabling the next geography of growth when the historic core is constrained. The report shows that Bristol’s tightly bounded geography and heritage assets have limited residential delivery, even though demand remains strong. That is why Temple Quarter and city centre regeneration areas such as Broadmead feel so important. Temple Quarter is positioned as the city’s most significant urban expansion opportunity in a generation, expected to deliver around 10,000 homes and 22,000 jobs, anchored by the University of Bristol’s new campus and supported by improved connectivity. I see that as a classic public-private proposition: infrastructure, institutions and civic vision from the public side; development, investment and mixed-use delivery from the private side.

Leeds reinforces the strategic value of public-sector involvement, even where the market is already active. It has become a national leader in Build to Rent and PBSA delivery, with substantial volumes supplied over the last decade. But our research suggests that its biggest long-term opportunity lies in the South Bank and areas to the south of the city centre - vast regeneration zones capable of effectively doubling the size of the city centre. Even with the cancellation of HS2 removing one potential catalyst, the scale and location of that opportunity remain compelling and underlines an important point: where regeneration areas are large, complex and phased over time, the public sector has an essential role in maintaining momentum, coordinating investment and preserving confidence through changing market cycles.

Glasgow perhaps makes the case for partnership most explicitly. The city has a large metropolitan population, strong universities and a substantial commercial base, yet relatively limited city-centre residential delivery. The report notes that creative partnerships and funding solutions will be essential if Glasgow is to grow its city centre population and meet demand spinning out of its academic institutions. I think that is enormously telling. It suggests that in some places the market case is present, but the funding structure, policy environment, or delivery model, still need to be stitched together. The example of the Barclays Campus at Tradeston, alongside the Student Loans Company headquarters and adjacent Build to Rent development, shows how office-led investment can catalyse wider mixed-use regeneration. 

Edinburgh brings a different but equally important public sector opportunity into focus: directing growth to the right places when heritage and land supply limit what can happen in the traditional core. Our research highlights Leith and the northern waterfront as the next phase of development, with the tram extension improving connectivity and unlocking higher-density residential-led mixed-use and cultural development. I read that as a reminder that transport intervention is not simply about movement; it is a land-use and regeneration tool. When the historic centre cannot absorb large-scale growth, public investment in connectivity can help open up alternative districts for sustainable expansion while preserving what makes the city distinctive.

Placemaking opportunities

More broadly, I think the public sector’s opportunity lies in understanding that mixed-use regeneration is about much more than housing numbers or isolated commercial schemes. It is also about placemaking and the idea that shops, bars, restaurants and cafés provide the ground-floor activation that connects homes, offices and hotels and gives places life. The report also shows how secondary retail areas are being repositioned into mixed-use destinations, and how public realm, amenity and core city centre environments remain critical to occupier demand. For public bodies, that creates a clear agenda: shape places holistically, not sector by sector. The strongest partnerships will be those that combine planning, transport, public space, culture and investment strategy into one coherent urban proposition.

It’s clear that regional cities across the UK are entering a promising but more complex phase of regeneration. Demand is still there, and in many cases it is strong across residential, student, office and experience-led retail. But delivery has become more difficult, more selective and more dependent on alignment between public ambition and private capital. That is why I believe public-private partnerships will be central to what happens next.

Whether it is patient capital in Greater Manchester, infrastructure-led regeneration in Birmingham, expansion at Temple Quarter, long-horizon opportunity in Leeds, creative funding solutions in Glasgow or transport-enabled growth in Edinburgh, the public sector has a major opportunity not just to support mixed-use regeneration, but to actively shape it. And if it does, the next cycle of urban growth could be more resilient, more inclusive and more transformative than the last.