Property Focus: The Interview – Martin Yardley

PROPERTY Focus ventures into new territory this week with our first interviewee from the public sector. Martin Yardley is head of both the development directorate and city services at Coventry City Council.

A town planner by trade, he has previously worked for Walsall Council and is charged with the development and regeneration of Coventry including its long-awaited Jerde Masterplan.

If you are interested in taking part in ‘The Interview’, please email tamlyn.jones@thebusinessdesk.com and click through to see all our previous Property Focus Interviews.

1. What are your views on the current state of the commercial property and property development markets?

Until very recently, commercial property felt very flat in terms of things actually happening with development being restricted to a few specific areas such as hotels and student accommodation. However there has been, in very recent times, evidence that things could just be starting to move again.

2. What are the key challenges and pieces of legislation you think will most affect your sector over the coming months?

The key challenges for us are still being in a position to interact with a private sector that is beginning to move whilst we are going through the largest and fastest cuts ever experienced by the public sector. Essentially, it will be dependent upon where authorities put their priorities. If this is in generating jobs we will be OK, if they retreat to purely statutory functions then life could get very challenging.

3. Why do you think the West Midlands is a good place to do business?

Given our location and history, I cannot understand why as a region we under perform around GDP. This is even more so for Coventry where we have every advantage for investment I could ask for. I really do think both the region and particularly Coventry are sleeping giants that once fully woken could get really moving.

4. What is your favourite building/development in the West Midlands and why?

I have to say as a Brummie, it has to be Selfridges for no other reason than I once caught my parents, who have no interest in architecture, arguing about whether it was a good or bad building. For me, that’s what architecture is all about, creating something that motivates people to talk, argue or visit.

5. If you could improve anything in the region, what would it be?

Its image and the way it feels about itself. We in the Midlands are the best at running ourselves down, which becomes ever more apparent the more investment we attract in from outside. “I don’t know what you lot are moaning about” is a saying that is becoming much more frequently used by those coming to the region for the first time or settling here.

6. What barriers have you faced during your career and how have you overcome them?

None really. I’ve just worked on the principle that I will carry on until someone catches on to me – and fortunately that hasn’t happened yet!

7. What was your first job and how did you enter your current line of work?

First job was working in a drawing office in Birmingham for a civil engineering company called AHS Waters. I then moved into town planning when a visitor to the college course I was undertaking on day release asked if anyone would be interested in working in a planning department.

My thought process was it could not be as bad as a drawing office and I have never looked back since. The move to regeneration just felt natural.

8. What do you most enjoy about your job?

Until recently I would have said either getting a deal done or standing in a new shiny building that I had played a part in helping create. I have to say now that, since my roll has changed to include city services, I am getting a real buzz out of waste management and highway maintenance. Sad, I know.

9. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

It was from an old, experienced development control planner who said “always move before they have had time to build what you have approved”.

10. And the worst?

Following the advice of my father and becoming a Birmingham City fan – 90% depression, 9% frustration and 1% despair.