Labour or Conservative, all of our plans for the housing crisis are an anachronism

Michael Beckerman

IN THE past few months, we’ve seen political parties announce a new solution to tackle the housing crisis every week. At the end of May it was Labour’s turn when it declared it would end the “hope value” – the value of land that assumes that it will achieve planning permission – in compulsory purchase orders by local authorities. The idea being it would make it cheaper, and easier, for local authorities to buy land to force through new housing. Earlier this month it was Housing Secretary Michael Gove taking up that idea and inserting it into a broader plan to fix housing and build new, “beautiful” homes.

As someone with a more distant yet deeply affectionate perspective, based in the US although visiting London as often as I can, it can be more than a bit frustrating. Not that politicians are seeking to tackle the housing crisis –but that the vast majority of what some are suggesting is so analogue in a digital age.

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: WHY ARE PLANE TICKETS STILL SO EXPENSIVE?

If you’re still thinking about how painful the price of your summer flights was, you’re not alone. Meanwhile, the owner of British Airways, IAG, reported bumper profits late last week.

Its operating profit before exceptional items for the second quarter of the year was more than four times that of last yearrising from around €295m (£250m last year to around €1.25bn (£1.07bn) this year.

IAG is not alone. Budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair also recently reported record profits. There are reasons beyond profiteering driving the price of tickets up. Inflation is making everything more expensive. The price of oil is still high, and since the pandemic there have been staffing shortages that airlines haven’t been fully able to resolve.

There are also fewer planes than there should be, because Boeing and Airbus have had to delay their big plans for new aircraft because of supply chain problems.

But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that airlines exist in a monopoly-like world. As long as we want to travel, we’ll pay what they ask us to.

So many of our societal problems, from the housing crisis to the climate catastrophe, are interlinked. At the beginning of July, the UK’s energy price cap was lowered – but households aren’t expecting to see much benefit. UK homes are among the draughtiest in Europe, and energy security is still so very far from being properly in place. Look at another news story recently: Ukraine has completed more wind turbines than the UK in the past year.

This is not unique to the UK. In New York, over 15 per cent of the population faced energy poverty in 2019 according to analysis by the Manhattan Institute. Likewise, more than 70 per cent of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions are from the built environment.

What we need is more investment in technology. Tech ensures we aren’t siloed in tackling some of the biggest challenges we face in London, New York or anywhere else.

There is a lot of clever capital going into climate tech right now. According to HolonIQ, in 2022, more than $70bn was invested globally into climate technology solutions. That’s up 89 per cent in 2021 and 40 times larger than a decade ago. Meanwhile, climate tech focused on the built environment attracted a record $9.7bn across more than 330 deals (up 56 per cent year-onyear). But there is still a mismatch. The built environment is responsible for around 40 per cent of carbon emissions, yet attracts less than 14 per cent of climate tech funding. That means there’s a huge opportunity to invest in the tech that will address a huge chunk of global emissions.

Thankfully, the smart money is going somewhere. There is a burgeoning ecosystem of tech start-ups that are already making an impact, helping London to build new homes and to tackle its carbon emissions.

A couple of shining examples for you. Modulous, which is backed by developers such as Regal London, aims to eliminate the global deficit of 500 million homes while improving housebuilders’ efficiency. It does its magic by using artificial intelligence to identify the feasibility of sites, looking at patches of land to identify in seconds how exactly a sustainable development with minimal waste can be created on site. In London, with the need to develop on brownfield sites, it could be a gamechanger.

When it comes to existing homes in the city there’s the likes of SimplyPhi which enables public sector bodies and private companies to acquire new homes at economies of scale, which in turn can increase professionalism of the rental experience for Londoners and identify improvements on environmental efficiency.

These are just a few of the tech startups that are making an impact on the housing and the climate crises. There are numerous others that could go further, faster, if more investment was secured.

What gives me hope is that the solutions are out there. There are tech firms doing brilliant work and that, by addressing these challenges, will make a lot of money in doing so. Investors ought to plough into climate tech and set the tone for politicians to follow.

France’s Savoyard region is wonderful for foraging and Michelin-starred food. Olivia

It’s high summer in Megève, an alpine town in the Savoyard region of France.

It is one of those pretty as a picture, pinch-me places that remind you why the French do life best; all sun-kissed slopes melting into valleys blanketed in acid green, ablaze with wildflowers and dotted with bijou wooden chalets.

Established as a ski destination by Noémie de Rothschild in the 1920s, by the 1950s Megève was so renowned as a playground for the rich and famous that Jean Cocteau referred to it as “the 21st arrondissement of Paris”.

It’s not all retro charm: the town’s Mediaeval centre has an enduring relationship with one of the world’s wealthiest dynasties that lends the resort a gilded edge. The de Rothschilds own 1,112 acres of prime real estate in the town, home to the only golf course in the area, a slew of excellent restaurants and a particularly charming Four Seasons property, the town’s only skiin, ski-out hotel, located at the foot of the Mont D’Arbois.

Built in local timber and stone, the 55room property feels more private chalet than hotel, designed and decorated by Ariane de Rothschild herself and filled with a personal collection of art and curiosities.

Impressive details include a vast art-deco style spa – a tribute to Noémie – and a wine cellar with glass staircase where some bottles ring in at more than 300,000 Euro.

There’s also La Dame de Pic – Le 1920, a restaurant by legendary French chef Anne-Sophie Pic. When it was awarded a Michelin star less than a year after its 2020 debut, Pic earned the title of the most highly decorated Michelin-starred female chef in the world.

Pic appears unfazed by her achievement when we meet in the vast Mont Blanc suite of Four Seasons Megève. Warm and jovial, her mischievous eyes twinkling behind thick-rimmed spectacles, she’s the antithesis of the egomaniacal superstar chef trope. With nine Michelin stars under her belt (three in Valence, two in Lausanne, two in London, one in Paris and one in Megève) it feels as if she has nothing to prove.

Pic’s love for the outdoors forms the bones of her food philosophy. “I want people to experience a sense of place when they eat my food,” she says. “It makes people happy.”

Now professionally linked to Megève as a region, Pic has taken her knowledge of the terroirs and its produce to the next level and trained in specialist foraging, getting her close to the nature she loves so much.

“It’s truly a lifetime’s work,” explains Pic. “Plants change at high altitude. I’ve come across so many inspirational new flavours.

I used to stare up at the sky and now I’m always focused on the ground.”

Four Seasons can arrange guided forage hikes into the hills. Trails suit all fitness levels and lead directly from the chalet up into the mountains; come summer, hike along a via ferrata, meander through meadows on horseback, or borrow an e-bike and explore sun-dappled forests. The winter season serves up some of the finest skiing in the Alps, plus heli-skiing, dog-sledding, glacier snowshoeing and hot-air ballooning.

The 18-hole Mont d’Arbois links golf course, located moments from the hotel, is one of the oldest in the region, and serves an