From the editor’s desk: A Cannes-do attitude

It’s the time of year when the great and the good of the East Midlands commercial property scene pack their tanga briefs, bikinis and suncream and head off to Cannes for the annual MIPIM shindig.

Before the recession hit, MIPIM used to be the place to be if you were a journalist after a big story. These days there are slim pickings, and those big deals that do get announced are very, very slow to get off the ground – a great example of this was the Nottingham team announcing that the much-anticipated Unity Square scheme would go ahead after the City Council had agreed to take some space. Nearly two years to the day and we’re still waiting for the removal van to rock up at Loxley House…

However, let’s not be so churlish about MIPIM. It’s true, before the recession, amazing amounts of money were spent to fly people to the south of France and the public realised this. Local papers would be full of letters bemoaning the fact that public money (spent through the East Midlands Development Agency) was being spent on the private sector – and rightly so.

These days, it’s different. Derby, Leicester and Nottingham have realised that the days of doing their own thing at great cost are over, and they’re working together to promote the region in a way that can only be a good thing.

The three-city collaboration, called the Power of 3 (Po3) will be hosting a panel breakfast at Jury’s Inn, East Midlands Airport later this morning. According to organisers, the Power of 3 event will “celebrate the collaboration of the three cities and will focus on the strength of the region and its strong proposition – not only in terms of its enterprise zones, and what it has to offer, but also the region’s willingness to work together.”

I hope I’m wrong, but it’s highly unlikely that the teams from the East Midlands will announce anything big at this year’s MIPIM, but maybe that’s not the point any longer. The world is fundamentally a different place than it was in from 2005-2008, when ridiculous levels of bank lending left many of our city centres with half-empty (at best) white elephant office schemes.

The “new realism” has been with us for a while now, and the commercial property sector, after some inital gripes, has learned to get on with it and make the most of what’s out there – and actually collaborating to push forward the region. And that, surely, is better than shouting from the rooftops about some high-falutin’ scheme that will probably never be built anyway?

Good luck in Cannes, everyone.