Report Launch at RICS: MPs, Civil Servants, and Industry Unite for Forest City

On Wednesday 13th May, we hosted an evening reception at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to formally launch our Forest City report. The event brought together MPs, civil servants, landowners, investors, builders, developers, lawyers, architects, and environmentalists — all united by a shared belief that Britain can build something remarkable.

The RICS Great Hall provided a fitting backdrop for an evening of speeches, networking, and forward-looking conversation. Attendees had the opportunity to examine the report’s findings, ask questions, and connect with others working across the housing, infrastructure, and environmental sectors.

We were honoured to have Dame Patricia Hewitt and other members of our advisory board in attendance, alongside supporters who have been with us since the very beginning.

Photos from the evening

We Make The Future

The best part of this job, advocating and leading the Forest City 1 Project, is that I get to talk to people. I get to hear about their hopes, their fears. And also the problems that they face.

One of the first people I met, six months ago, was Tom who works flat out in a garage in Suffolk, but could never contemplate buying a home because even the most run down two bed house near him costs £200k.

Then there’s the professor who must arrive at her department two hours before she needs to. Why? She has to fight for a place on a train because there’s just one track between Newmarket and Cambridge. So they can’t put on any more trains.

And then there’s the world beating bio-tech company who moved out of Cambridge because of the expense of lab space, only to move to a town, Haverhill, without a train station at all. Now their employees sit in traffic all morning.

Or the other British start up that creates rare earth minerals in beakers; their innovation is mind blowing. They might now move abroad because they can’t punch a few extra holes in the ceiling for vents without waiting a year for planning permission.

Finally there’s the new homes in Cambridgeshire, where the taps have no water in them because no one has built a reservoir in decades.

All of these stories have a common thread. Giving those individuals £1000 or even £100,000 would be nice, but it wouldn’t help them solve their problems. Benefits or bungs, won’t do a jot. These are problems of infrastructure, coordination, bureaucratic permission, or strategic planning that no individual or business can fix on their own.

They are just the problems that government is meant to solve. But has failed to do so for far too long.

And now it is a crisis. It’s undeniable.

There is no growth, no rejuvenation of our economy, without these problems being fixed. It’s that straightforward.

For the last six months a small band of volunteers, all area experts, working pro-bono, have been trying to figure out whether we can solve many of these problems at speed, at scale and through a singular coordinating project.

That project is Forest City.

This city is geographically located at this amazing set of intersections: two strategic economic corridors, East-West rail, proximity to the UK’s largest port in Felixstowe, and it also sits right beside one of the world’s greatest universities.

And should Forest City get built it will deliver 400k homes, millions of new sq ft for businesses and startups, new schools, hospitals, trains, roadworks, water infrastructure, tens of billions in growth, jobs for generations, and of course, England’s largest land based nature reserve.

Yes, it’s ambitious, but not only do we believe that the report we’ve launched demonstrates that Forest City is feasible, it also meets the moment we are in. Big problems, and my god our problems are big, need bold, ambitious solutions.

Not just to signal to the world what we are capable of. Not just to practically resolve the problems with extra venting, or more trains for the professor, or Tom’s hope to buy a house. But to renew our own belief, as a country, that the future will be better than the past.

Remarkably, over the months, this group of men and women working on the report, have been joined by many others; an outstanding board; thousands of supporters, and tonight, we draw together the people in this room, many of whom have the ability, resources and desire to help bring Forest City to fruition.

Look around and you will meet politicians, landowners, investors, builders, developers, lawyers, architects, environmentalists, who see something special in what we’ve been doing. It’s amazing and incredibly humbling to have you all here.

To want to act, to be optimists in this moment, is courage indeed.

Over the next few months, we will push to enhance this support, with MHCLG and others, so that we can move on to Phase 2; answering the mass of detail as part of our masterplanning process and truly demonstrating exactly how Forest City gets delivered. It’s a big job.

But tonight, after many months of work, it is a night for joy, and giving thanks.

Thank you

Thank you to the specific report authors, Debbie Larrad, Bethany Albrecht, Tom Chance, Priti Billimoria, Paul Powesland, James Gleave, Ed Collinson, James Donovan and Rob Pickering. Joe and I have been in absolute awe of the time and dedication you’ve given to this.

We also want to thank the more than 30 others who helped contribute to this project — many of whom are here tonight — Patrik Schumacher, Eric Sorrenson, Tara Austin and so many others.

And there is also tonight’s sponsor — Innovation Nursery. John and the team you have been giving us encouragement and helping to facilitate discussion through all of this. You really live up to your name.

Tom Holbrook and 5th Studio, thank you for all the many hours you put into creating this amazing visual asset for Forest City. And also for giving me a much deeper understanding of Cambridgeshire’s history and geology!

And there are many others to thank who can’t be here tonight, including Sir Tim Smit, of the Eden Project who has been most generous with his counsel.

Finally, our advisory board — Tim Luenig, Paul Johnson, Jackie Sadek, Steve McAdam, and Dame Patricia Hewitt. I’ve seen you in meetings and wow, you guys are master operators — I would not want to sit on the other side of the table to any of you. Thank you for being such warriors for Forest City.

Let me end by saying this: We started this journey just six months ago, and the energy to see this through has grown week by week. It’s quite incredible. There will be set backs, and bumps along the way, there have been a few already, but let there be little doubt about our desire to get this done.

We live in a remarkable country, with remarkable people, who invent, create, and foster remarkable things. It’s quite unique and quite precious. We are all inheritors of that legacy.

But every day we also walk the frontier of a new path.

We make the future. So let us make it as remarkable as we know it deserves to be.

Thank you.