Real Estate:UK’s latest study shows that investment volumes topped £57bn in 2025, with foreign investors, led by a record £18.2bn from the US alone, piling into UK real estate across offices, healthcare, industrial, and living sectors.

However, Make UK’s concurrent report makes clear that the supply side is being strangled: nearly half of manufacturers (46%) say the planning system holds back their business, and 43% say it directly constrains their ability to grow and invest.

As Real Estate:UK put it, where construction costs have risen sharply and the cost of capital has increased significantly, new development has far less capacity to absorb additional planning obligations or process delays.

The result is a pipeline under pressure precisely when investor appetite is at its strongest.

Oliver Bertram, Head of National Development at Panattoni UK, Europe’s largest commercial property developer, can discuss the impact of planning friction on the commercial development pipeline, including:

• Why record inbound investment will not translate into new development without urgent planning reform, and what that means for occupiers and developers

• How the lack of a fast-track route for strategic industrial and commercial schemes is creating a structural mismatch between capital availability and deliverable supply for schemes of national importance

• Why Make UK’s call for a ‘growth test’ to track the speed, cost, and outcomes of planning decisions for industrial schemes deserves serious attention from government

• Why cutting the cost and complexity of planning applications, the top priority cited by manufacturers, would have an outsized impact on SME-led development and regional growth