VIDEO | Building a stronger pipeline between industry and education

The last 10 years have brought us wars, political uncertainty at home and abroad, Brexit, and a pandemic. Panellists at Place North’s Wednesday breakfast conference discussed how the sector has delivered amid the chaos and how it will continue to do so in the future. 

Jolly Harbour may not exist today, but the fictional town conjured up by those attending Place North’s Tuesday breakfast event served as a great testbed for conversations about placemaking best practice.

Leaving MIPIM behind for another year, the focus now moves on to how those conversations in Cannes translate into real projects back home, says Steven Gregory, area director of Morgan Sindall Construction.

With the dust just beginning to settle on MIPIM 2026, managing partner Dino Moutsopoulos joined deputy editor Dan Whelan to look back on a busy week of networking events, interactive panels, and front-line news and ponder what next year has in store for the North of England and Scotland when their delegations return to Cannes.

This panel session explored how the North’s combination of land, skills, and collaboration gives it a compelling edge in the I&L sector, despite persistent challenges.

The UK’s renewed focus on new towns is prompting fresh debate about how to create places that thrive for generations. At a panel session hosted by Place North, industry leaders were tasked with a thought experiment: how would they design a settlement from scratch?

The UK faces a two‑sided housing crisis: locations unviable for developers, rising costs squeezing out homebuyers. The urban fringe could hold the answer.

Mayors, city leaders, and Combined Authority officials from across the Midlands, the North of England, and Scotland used a roundtable hosted by Place North to argue that the UK’s next wave of growth will be driven by regional cities, highlighting opportunities in AI, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and housing, while calling for deeper devolution and stronger infrastructure investment.

Representatives from top investment firms, local authorities, and developers gathered to do business at MIPIM’s UK Stage on Tuesday morning.