Event Summary
MIPIM | Private sector reflects on MIPIM 2025
With the end of the convention in sight, Muse’s managing director, Phil Mayall, Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash, and igloo regeneration’s senior development manager, Insiyah Khushnood gave their final reflections on the big week.
Phil Mayall said the week had reaffirmed to him the value of making the commitment to go out to Cannes, adding that the shake-up of the pandemic and the emergence of UKREiiF has led people to question whether MIPIM retains the same value as before. Phil, however, believes that the quality of interaction at MIPIM is “genuinely going up”.
Phil said that the UK stage was a success, but that next year he would prefer sessions to be more incidental exchange-led, rather than panel-led to help create a “collision space”.
He added: “We as a business are already starting to think about next year, how we do things better”.
Insiyah Khushnood, senior development manager at igloo regeneration, praised attendees for having high-quality open conversations, adding that she had found the week “heartwarming”, but that the hard work starts once MIPIM has passed.
She said: “What I’ve taken away from the week is placemaking is still on the agenda – it’s not just a numbers game, in fact to everyone I’ve spoken to, it’s become a lot more important.”
Khushnood has been made confident that placemaking, sustainability, and good design remain key to the housing agenda.
She added that it was a “bit sad” that Cannes is needed to host these conversations, “I wish we could do that back home, but it still is a great platform – there’s still value in those conversations with people you didn’t expect to meet.”
Founder of Urban Splash, Tom Bloxham, on his 32nd MIPIM, joked “umbrella sales are up, suncream sales are down”.
He said: “MIPIM has an amazing ability – even people you can see in England, city leaders, other people, you can see so much more quickly.
“We are trying to connect international capital with UK regeneration. For that, it’s good to listen to the world view and interact with a few international investors.”
With the backdrop of global uncertainty, Bloxham believes “the UK is increasingly seen as a destination place for capital – billions of capital is waiting to queue up and invest in the UK, particularly residential”, but notes that the commitment is not quite there yet.
He continued: “I’ve seen an excitement about what appears to be some freeing up in the planning system. The announcements we heard on Tuesday, the deputy prime minister, were sounding very, very positive and a new planning system, perhaps some new towns, perhaps some more mayoral development corporations, might be really exciting.”
More negatively, he conceded “costs are up, interest rates are up, values are down because yields are moving”, but he is confident there is an emerging recognition from the public sector that challenges such as viability need to be properly addressed.
Click any image to launch gallery
