What we heard at REiiF: investment, regeneration and growth

Introduction 

Only four years old, REiiF has quickly become a fixture in the local government calendar. Huge in size and taking place over the entire Royal Armouries area, it offers a dazzling number of sessions, and the hard-to-get-your-hands-on printed programmes run to hundreds of pages. 

This year’s conference took place in the aftermath of English local and Scottish parliamentary elections, with the impact of those elections very much reverberating around the conference.

Speaking to LGIU councils across the conferences with Jonathan Carr-West, this article sets out reflections from the conference and beyond.

Temporary accommodation pressures require a whole council approach

Cian Cronin from 31ten Consulting hosted an insightful panel discussion on temporary accommodation (TA), after he and his colleagues vowed to rectify the fact that in 2025, there wasn’t a single session on the topic. In his intro, he set out that TA has changed in nature from an acute pressure into a structural/long-term challenge, meaning that authorities need to develop longer-term plans. Speakers from Waltham Forest, Birmingham City Council and Bristol City Council emphasised that the scale of the challenge and the level of cost pressure mean they are pursuing multiple interventions simultaneously. Their advice was clear. ‘‘Put in as many routes as you can” as ‘‘the business case always stacks up”

New approaches are being developed 

We also heard from Vicky Searle, from Browne Jacobsone, LGIU’s strategic partner, about her work with these councils and others on developing innovative new solutions and avenues. Their work recognises that LAs can’t borrow enough to solve this on their own, and private funding via institutional investors and pension funds can be built into a scheme that provides significant savings for authorities. Vicky’s approach draws on a range of legal mechanisms and powers, and Vicky will be covering this topic in more detail soon in a dedicated article.

In the meantime, for more insights on this topic, register for our upcoming LGIU/Temporary Accommodation Network event: exploring whole-council approaches to temporary accommodation, including practical strategies councils are using to manage demand, improve outcomes and develop longer-term housing solutions.

Uneven devolution will have a direct impact

Devolution was on show – with myriad stages and areas dedicated to mayors, regions and combined authorities – and mayors. The role of mayors and combined/strategic authorities in leveraging investment was clear to see.

At the same time, REiiF was held immediately following the passing of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.

As we’ve already written about here, the changes that the Act will bring about will not be as deep as the sector expected when the White Paper was first published in December 2024, when there was a guarantee that every citizen would benefit from devolution or the establishment of a strategic authority.

With universal coverage, or mayors and strategic authorities no longer guaranteed, there isn’t a level playing field. How will regions without mayors or strategic authorities compete for funding and investment?

LGR continues to create pressure and anxiety

I also attended an excellent LGR conversation, brilliantly hosted by Sarah McKee from Cratus, where attendees discussed how they are trying to create stability in a time of uncertainty. We heard concerns about staff morale and turnover, with one Chief Executive reporting that LGR is coming up in exit interviews, that people are leaving for nearby non-LGR councils.

There was also much talk around the conference about the Essex LGR challenge and whether further challenges might come forward. We heard that officers are now having to plan and deliver both implementation and challenge simultaneously, creating additional pressure and workload at an already busy time

Political change was in evidence and will impact delivery

As I said on the final day of the conference, “Political change was in evidence. There was no sign of Andy Burnham at the Vision for Local Government in 2040 session, and some previously regular council attendees were also absent”

Attendees at the conference were open about the fact that this change will take time to settle – where new administrations are in place decisions are being reconsidered and existing policy approaches are being re-examined by. At the same, there are also more councils than ever under No Overall Control (NOC), but as Jonathan has written here we think these NOC councils may be a bit different from the ones that have gone before.

The Prisoners Building Homes programme could offer a route to dealing with  difficult small sites 

We were pleased to support our strategic partner Local Partnerships by attending the Aecom-hosted panel on Prisoners Building Homes (PBH), a cross-governmental initiative that sees prisoners and ex-offenders working with modular housebuilders to build low-carbon homes on public and third sector sites. The PBH team, who are hosted by Local Partnerships, are now working with 11 prisons across the country and “specialise in grotty sites”, so it may offer a new route to sites that have ended up in the ‘too hard’ pile, and with significant additional social benefits. 

Conclusion

REiiF is a fascinating event. It’s not a local government conference as such, but local government is at the heart of it. That reflects local government’s central role in creating and curating places. 

We saw a sector that is navigating significant change on multiple fronts all at once: political, structural, and financial. From the acute pressures of temporary accommodation to the (currently) uneven landscape of devolution, councils are being asked to do more with less, often in the middle of reorganisation and political transition. Yet what was equally evident across the two days was the resilience, creativity and collaborative spirit that characterises local government at its best – whether that’s pioneering new funding models for housing, finding innovative uses for difficult sites, or simply holding organisations together through uncertainty. 

At LGIU, we often say that national success has local foundations. REiif demonstrates the truth of that both metaphorically and literally.