Good News: A good start, but more is needed to support UK jobs and growth The analysis shows that for every £1 million we spend on construction we generate an estimated 31 jobs. In total our £2.1 billion development programme will support some 32,300 jobs from 2011 to 2015. While many of these jobs are on-site in London, arguably the most interesting aspect of the report is the impact of the construction spend elsewhere in the UK. Over five years our off-site construction expenditure will have supported an estimated 4,300 jobs across the UK and contributed £186 million to the UK economy. Expenditure on key components plays a significant role in a number of communities. For example, helping meet the specialist steel requirements of the Leadenhall building in the heart of the City is providing the Severfield-Rowen group with 600,000 hours of work (300 full times jobs for a year) in Lancashire, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Yorkshire. Two-thirds of this is being undertaken by Watson Steel in Bolton accounting for 80 per cent of that company's turnover. This has not just helped secure at risk jobs but enabled the firm to invest in converting its last low value steel bay into a high value bay and recruit 20 new skilled workers. If these are just some of the benefits from our 2.3 million sq foot central London development programme, imagine what impact London's entire 37 million sq foot construction programme is having. As our research shows, commercial and retail property plays just as important a role in restoring the UK economy to sustainable growth but planning takes too long and taxes on development have risen dramatically. There are some specific things the Government could do to help unlock investment and get things going across the sector as a whole. Judicial review is an important safeguard to ensure that major planning decisions are taken in the right manner but too many dubious challenges are reaching already overburdened courts. The Government could speed up the legal process by setting up a dedicated tribunal system to help more quickly process the case load. Battles over heritage listings or "village green" status also take far too long. We need to protect the greens of England, but we also need a more predictable process. Local authorities could make establishing listings and protected land part of the process of drawing up the local plan so that development can proceed without fear of protracted challenge until the next local plan is drawn up. At the moment, lack of certainty deters rather than encourages investment. Finally, the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) needs review, not just to close loopholes that allow small changes in plans to trigger CIL for a whole site, and which the Government is already rightly looking at, but also to ensure that rates are not set too high. Importantly, when CIL is in place, Section 106 requirements are scaled back as was intended so that we don't have to pay for the same types of infrastructure twice - so called "double dipping." The Government has set the ball rolling. It now needs to finish the job to ensure construction and commercial development can help support jobs and growth throughout the UK. Chris Grigg is chief executive of British Land