Steve Woods<p>"At a panel discussion, six senior officials from across the north of England vie to seduce an audience of investors – like Dragons’ Den for property tycoons – to choose their city to build major new property developments. After decades of Tory austerity, and with no sign of Labour restoring council funding to its full pre-2010 levels, this is what Britain’s municipalities are reduced to: grubbing for cash to build projects they cannot afford to fund themselves. It’s an unedifying spectacle to see local governments pleading at the feet of international capital."</p><p><a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/MIPIM" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MIPIM</span></a> <a href="https://mastodonapp.uk/tags/Cannes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Cannes</span></a></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/26/cannes-english-councils-property-developers-housing" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/commentisfree/</span><span class="invisible">2025/mar/26/cannes-english-councils-property-developers-housing</span></a></p>