Last week, I was in Liverpool for the Labour Party Conference, with conversations across the main stage and fringe events focused heavily on good growth, housing, regeneration and the transition to net zero.
There was a noticeably different mood at the Conference this year. Andy Burnham’s first Conference as Prime Minister was policy-heavy, with major commitments on housing, social care and greater public control of essential services, alongside a willingness to reopen difficult political questions including the pensions triple lock and Britain’s relationship with the EU.
More significant was the political narrative around those policies. Burnham spoke candidly about the challenges facing the country and the difficult choices involved, while making an emotive case for why change was needed. Through personal stories about housing, care and opportunity, he gave people a stronger sense of why those choices mattered and what the Government was ultimately trying to achieve.
That marks a shift from one of the recurring criticisms of Keir Starmer’s leadership: that individual policies were not connected by a clear account of what the Government was trying to achieve.
Burnham used his first Conference to begin establishing that wider story, with public intervention and devolution positioned as tools to deliver what he repeatedly described as “good growth”.
Here are my key takeaways from the Conference:
Housing and regeneration: the focus is shifting to delivery
Housing was central to Labour’s wider argument on growth, but much of the discussion at the Conference moved beyond the question of how many homes are needed, to how growth is planned and delivered.
At a Labour Housing Group event, Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook made the case for regeneration led by strategic masterplans rather than piecemeal development - planning homes alongside infrastructure, public spaces and the wider needs of a place to deliver better outcomes.
Greater strategic planning powers for mayors form part of that shift, allowing housing and growth to be considered across local authority boundaries rather than through the “hyper-localism” Pennycook associated with the previous Conservative Governments.
That was linked to another recurring theme: strong political leadership.
Pennycook argued that Labour has changed the terms of the housing debate. The question is increasingly not whether development should happen, but how it happens and how areas meet their assessed housing need. He was clear that delivery will require difficult decisions, with Government prepared to intervene where local authorities are unwilling to take them.
For the development sector, that creates both an opportunity and a challenge. Housing targets, planning reform and devolution can create the conditions for growth, but they do not on their own make schemes viable or build public confidence in development.
If Government is to accelerate housing and regeneration at the scale proposed, how growth is delivered (and how communities are brought into that process) will become increasingly important.
Net zero: making the case through energy security and growth
Energy was another major theme, with Labour increasingly framing the transition to net zero through energy security, lower bills, jobs and economic growth, rather than as a standalone environmental objective.
In her keynote speech, Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh set out the argument further, making the case for clean energy as a route to reducing the UK’s exposure to volatile global energy markets, while attracting investment, creating jobs and supporting the reindustrialisation of communities across the country.
Key announcements included a £1 billion Local Power Plan to support locally owned clean energy and the devolution of the Warm Homes Plan, giving mayors and local government greater control over investment in their areas. Burnham also announced plans for Great British Grid, aimed at speeding up grid connections - a barrier he directly linked to growth and inward investment.
For me, however, one of the most important points was Fahnbulleh’s recognition that the transition has to work for the communities experiencing it.
She drew on the experience of previous industrial transitions where communities felt change was done to them rather than with them. The message was that this transition needs to be different, with communities seeing tangible benefits through jobs, skills, investment and greater local ownership.
That feels particularly important as the political debate around net zero becomes more contested. Delivering significantly more renewable energy infrastructure will require more than supportive national policy. Individual projects will still be delivered in places, affecting communities who will have their own questions and concerns.
For those of us advising across the sector, making the case for why infrastructure is needed, engaging communities early and demonstrating meaningful local benefit will be increasingly central to delivery.
The next test is delivery
Across both regeneration and net zero, I came away from Liverpool with a similar conclusion.
There is a stronger political story emerging around what Labour means by “good growth”: more strategic planning, greater local and mayoral power, investment in homes and infrastructure, and a more active role for the state.
The challenge now is turning that national ambition into delivery on the ground - viable schemes, new homes, clean energy infrastructure, jobs and investment that people can actually see and feel in their communities.
As the focus shifts from policy reform to delivery, the question will increasingly be whether that ambition can be translated into projects at the pace and scale Labour has promised, while bringing communities with it.
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7 October 2026