Scotland needs to rediscover its ambition and optimism

It took a while. Battersea was passed from investor to investor, all with grand plans - a theme park, an urban park, Chelsea’s new football stadium - but all ultimately failures.

In 2012, the year of London’s Olympics, it was bought by a consortium of Malaysian investors who, in little over a decade, have overseen an astonishing transformation. Battersea Power Station is now the centrepiece of what is in effect an entirely new district of London. Inside the building sits a large shopping mall, a few hundred high-end apartments and the aforementioned Lift 109.

But the real story lies outside. Two new Underground stations have been built, extending the Northern Line, and funded to the tune of a quarter-of-a-billion pounds by the investors. Thousands of homes have been constructed, as well as a theatre and the New Covent Garden market. And jobs have been created - thousands of them - including the consolidation of all of Apple’s London operations.

This column is not intended to be an advertisement to visit Battersea Power Station and purchase an overpriced London Brick doorstop (be warned); instead it is intended to be an advertisement for the benefits of private, inward investment, and the role it plays in curating our precious buildings at the same time as creating jobs, homes and places, with a level of funding, innovation and expertise that no government or local authority could ever emulate.

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There’s always something happening in London. It’s an ambitious, optimistic city where entrepreneurs think big thoughts and do big things. They don’t always work, as they didn’t with the first few buyers of Battersea; but when they do, they really do.

We in Scotland have a history of ambition and optimism, too. We remain a genuinely attractive prospect in several sectors. Aberdeen and the north east, up to the northern isles, is a global energy icon. Edinburgh remains a skills and investment hub for financial services and fintech.

And large-scale regeneration happens, too. Our capital may not have a Battersea Power Station, but it did have the St James Centre which was, mercifully, bought by American investors and replaced by St James Quarter and the beautiful W Hotel, a stunning, modern addition to Edinburgh’s old skyline. It forms a terminus, of sorts, at the end of the George Street, St Andrew Square, Multrees Walk stretch, which has pulled people and businesses from the west end to the east end (although the former can be grateful for the Johnnie Walker Experience) and much of which was thanks to the vision of former council leader Donald Anderson, amongst others.

But reputations are built over miles and lost over yards. Edinburgh, and Scotland, will only retain a reputation as an attractive investment prospect if it curates its environment, retains its ambition and optimism, and keeps its arms open to private investment from home and abroad.

The St James Quarter in Edinburgh (Image: Newsquest)

There are disturbing signs of this openness waning, and there is little value in skirting around that. In the housing sector, most obviously, we have problems. The freeze-and-then-cap in the private rented sector has had calamitous, if unintended, consequences. Investors, keen to build housing for rent, are flipping their plans to build more student accommodation instead, in search of better returns. Others who have not yet reached the point of planning or building are sitting on the land, waiting until the circumstances improve before putting a spade in the ground. Others still in the scoping phase are choosing to build in England, where there are no rent caps, and where they enjoy a less hostile environment to invest their pension fund.

As well as harming tenants by reducing supply and therefore forcing up the market rent, this sends a smoke signal that Scotland may no longer be the place to be. That is one sector, but there is no smoke without fire, and the fire is the worrying gap between tax rates north and south of the Border.

We need, in Scotland, to consider whether we are really ambitious enough to cope in the mid-21st century. I was struck, over the Christmas holidays, when we went for a family stroll over the Forth Road Bridge, at the branding of the Queensferry Crossing as “the biggest infrastructure project in Scotland for a generation”. I thought, ok, it’s perfectly fine, but should it be a source of pride that it’s the biggest thing we’ve done recently? I mean, it’s just a bridge.

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In that respect, London and England have their own issues. Crossrail, Hinckley Point, HS2; none glorious successes, and put to shame by successful grand projects in countries far smaller than this one, such as the E39 coastal connection up the west coast of Norway, or the Faroe Islands’ remarkable tunnelling projects.

So, in Scotland we should keep a close eye not just to our south but also to our north, west and east in order to ensure that we maintain and enhance our reputation. From our great capitalist thinkers like Adam Smith, to our historical businesspeople and philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie, to their modern-day equivalents in the likes of Jim McColl and Ian Wood and Tom Hunter, we have a legacy of understanding the important role that investment and wealth creation plays in expanding our economy, funding our public services and providing opportunity for our children.

We need more. More investment, more wealthy people, a broader tax base.

We have been a successful country. It would be a shame if we forgot how we did it.