Two recent announcements from the government and Belfast City Council appear to be at odds with one another.

The first came from Finance Minister John O’Dowd, who outlined his intention to require owners of vacant commercial properties in Northern Ireland to pay 100% rates. The argument behind this move is that the government will intervene and tackle major sites of dereliction in urban centres, such as the Tribeca site in Belfast.

Mr O’Dowd has stated that a review of derelict vacant properties should take place, but will charging landlords 100% rates on these vacant premises really deliver the intended result?

Unsurprisingly, landlords do not wish to see their premises vacant as it creates a lack of income, exacerbated further by the current payment of rates (even at 50%). Simply forcing a landlord to pay 100% rates will not immediately have any impact other than a landlord potentially deciding to demolish the building. If it could have been let to an occupier, it would have been let. It is not unfair to say that the problem of urban dereliction cannot be remedied in this manner.

Secondly, and on a more positive note, it has been announced that Belfast City Council is applying for a £250 million city wide regeneration fund under the English Devolution White Paper and Homes England Scheme. The council claims that the new fund could unlock several stalled regeneration schemes, such as Tribeca and others in the city centre, including the Sirocco site (Waterside Belfast).

This would create a regeneration fund beyond the £150 million already provided by the Northern Ireland Investment Fund and managed by CBRE Capital Advisors, a loan fund that has allowed for the delivery of projects such as Merchant Square, PWC’s head office in Belfast, car parking at Grosvenor Road, the Room2 Aparthotel, and the various hotels currently nearing completion in Titanic Quarter.

The council is calling for a further fund as part of what it calls the Belfast Place Based Growth Proposition, with the new fund designated for regeneration, providing housing, infrastructure and public realm initiatives.

The regeneration fund may not immediately solve problems such as our lack of basic utilities for development to proceed, including water and electricity provision, but it will certainly help developers look at their vacant space through a more positive lens.

The CBRE team in Manchester has demonstrated how these regeneration funds can work. Colin Thomasson, Head of Investment Properties, UK, and his team successfully lobbied Parliament, and the resultant Greater Manchester Property Venture Fund is now well placed, with £1 billion allocated.

This allocation from central Government is designed to regenerate parts of Manchester which are derelict and will complement the major development already happening in the city centre.

In my view, government intervention is much more important to regeneration and likely to be much more successful than levying empty rates on empty buildings where potential tenants do not exist, and where renovation is simply not economically possible.

Less stick and more carrot would be preferable.