David Farmer, Lime Finance Solutions · Crawley & Gatwick
Seven prime ministers in ten years. Andy Burnham took over on 20 July 2026 after Keir Starmer resigned in June, and within a fortnight my phone was busy with the same question in a dozen different accents.
Though on Manor Royal, the news that actually mattered this month didn't come out of Westminster at all. It came out of the Court of Appeal.
I had a conversation recently with a small engineering firm off Gatwick Road. They rent their unit, they want to buy the freehold, and they had been sitting on the decision since the spring. Nothing they asked me was about politics. They wanted to know whether the money would still be there, and whether waiting was clever or expensive.
That is the only question that really matters. Here is my honest answer for anyone running a business on the estate.
Two things have moved from press release to policy.
VAT comes off domestic electricity bills from 1 October. Burnham called it his big announcement. It is aimed at households, but it quietly helps a lot of the smaller outfits around here — the cafés, the salons, the one-van trade businesses sitting below the VAT registration threshold.
Then business rates. A 20% cut for around 32,000 pubs, clubs and live music venues from April 2027, worth roughly £1,100 a year to a typical venue and about £100m a year to the Treasury (Property Week, July 2026). Manor Royal is not a high street, so that one lands harder in Crawley town centre and Three Bridges than it does on Fleming Way.
The wider package is the interesting bit for the estate. There is talk of lifting the small business rates relief threshold from £12,000 to £18,000, with tapered relief extended from £15,000 to £21,000, inside a high street package of around £880m (ITV News, July 2026). Chancellor John Healey described the first announcements as “just one step”. None of it is confirmed yet.
The date to keep free is Wednesday 28 October. That is the Autumn Budget.
While everyone was watching the reshuffle, the Court of Appeal threw out the last legal challenge to Gatwick's northern runway. The Secretary of State granted consent in September 2025, the High Court upheld it in June, and this month the road cleared.
Gatwick's own figures put the scheme at around 14,000 new jobs across the south east, roughly £1bn a year for the regional economy, and capacity for up to 80 million passengers.
If you own or occupy here, that matters more than anything in the Budget. Manor Royal is 540 acres, nine million square feet, more than 600 businesses and over 30,000 jobs — over 70% of all the employment land in Crawley, sitting on the airport's doorstep. A bigger Gatwick means more logistics, more aviation supply chain, more maintenance, more of everything that already fills those units.
Lenders read that too. Location is not a soft factor in a credit paper. It is a paragraph the underwriter actually writes.
Business rates are not a footnote in a property decision. They are part of what an occupier can afford to pay, which is part of what a landlord can charge, which is what the lender is really lending against. Lower occupancy costs mean tenants stay. Tenants staying means income a lender can rely on.
The other half of the picture here is the buildings themselves. The estate was named by Princess Elizabeth in 1950, and a fair chunk of the stock still shows it.
The gap between good space and tired space is stark. Grade B is letting at around £15 to £20 per square foot. Refurbished Grade A is £27 to £28, and the best new offices are above £30. Around 200,000 sq ft was let in Crawley in the last twelve months, the strongest take-up since the lows of 2021 (Vail Williams, 2026).
Then there is EPC. Minimum rating B for larger non-domestic property by 2031. Lenders are pricing that now, not in 2031. I have seen the difference between an EPC C and an EPC E change both the rate and the loan to value on offer. On an estate with this much 1950s and 60s stock, that is a today problem dressed up as a 2031 problem.
Worth knowing too: a tenanted building and an empty one are valued very differently, and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 sits quietly behind a lot of lender appetite. It surprises people. I wrote about why a 70% commercial mortgage often isn't 70% if you want the detail.
Sussex got its combined authority in March 2026, covering West Sussex, East Sussex and Brighton & Hove, with Crawley inside it. The first mayoral election has been pushed back to May 2028 (GOV.UK).
The direction of travel is that mayors keep more of what is raised locally, starting with business rates. Two similar units, two different authorities, two different views on relief. Worth watching. Not worth panicking about.
Council housing is Burnham's stated top priority. Public land released at a discount, development corporations to speed up planning, density in town centres rather than out in the fields.
For a small developer in this part of Sussex that cuts both ways. More land and faster consents are genuinely useful, and the awkward infill sites the volume builders will not touch are exactly what development finance is for. But margins on affordable-led schemes are thinner, and the exit is usually a bulk sale to one registered provider rather than a run of open market sales. Lenders look hard at single-counterparty exit risk.
Manor Royal is already showing what the other route looks like. On Northwood Park, three tired office buildings went three different ways: one demolished for EV charging and retail, one let to a specialist health clinic on a fifteen-year lease after a £500,000 refurbishment and a change of use, one part-let and still being marketed. Repurposing is a funding job as much as a planning one.
Two things I would flag. Development finance is not a lump sum, it is a running tab drawn down in stages against a monitoring surveyor's sign-off, so the lender effectively re-underwrites you at every stage. And think about development exit finance early, rather than when the last unit will not shift. If you are weighing up a partner, joint venture finance is the most misunderstood product I deal with. If it is your first scheme, start here.
This part matters more than any of the policy above.
The Bank of England held base rate at 3.75% on 30 July, the fifth hold in a row, with inflation at 2.6%. The next decision is 17 September.
Base rate is not what prices your fixed commercial loan anyway. Swap rates do that, and they move on things Westminster does not control. What matters is that it is steady. In 2022 and 2023 I had offers repriced under me while we were still collecting paperwork. That is not happening now.
Gross bank lending to smaller businesses rose 9% to £68bn in 2025, the second highest figure in thirteen years behind only the Covid spike (British Business Bank, Small Business Finance Markets Report 2026).
The Growth Guarantee Scheme has been expanded by £6.5bn and is expected to support around 33,000 businesses over four years. The bit almost nobody knows: it can be used to refinance and reset existing debt, not only to borrow more.
And here is the number I would put on a board in every unit on Manor Royal. Challenger and specialist banks accounted for 60% of gross SME bank lending in 2025, up from 39% in 2012. So when the bank you have used for twenty years says no, that is 40% of the market talking. Not the market. I find myself explaining this two or three times a week, and it is most of what a broker is actually for.
I left banking because of 2008. I watched facilities pulled from businesses that were perfectly solvent, and I watched people lose twenty years of work in a fortnight. That is why Lime exists, and it is why I still get twitchy when the political noise gets loud.
Seven prime ministers into this, though, the deals still complete. The lenders who were sensible in 2019 are sensible now.
My daughter Megan works in construction health and safety, and asbestos is her specialism. She would have plenty to say about some of the older buildings on this estate. She would also say exactly what I say: governments change, and the building still has to be done properly.
Do not wait for 28 October. If you need money inside six months, start the conversation now. Agreements in principle and valuations take time, and there will be a queue in November. Waiting and seeing usually costs more than it saves.
Get your EPC out and look at it before a lender does. On an estate of this age it is a pricing issue, not a paperwork one.
And if a bank has already said no, treat it as one opinion. There is 60% of the market you have not asked yet.
I do not know what is in the Budget. Nobody does. What I do know is that the businesses that move early get better outcomes than the ones waiting for a certainty that never quite arrives.
If any of this is close to where you are right now — a freehold purchase on Manor Royal, a refurbishment, or just a facility that no longer fits the business — I am always happy to have that conversation. You can book a call whenever it suits.
David Farmer
Lime Finance Solutions
Does a change of prime minister affect whether I can borrow against my Manor Royal unit?
Not overnight, and not directly. Lending criteria shift over months, through confidence and the tax backdrop, not through a change at Number 10. A deal that stacked up in June still stacks up now.
What has actually changed for businesses under Burnham so far?
VAT off domestic electricity from 1 October, and a 20% business rates cut for pubs, clubs and live music venues from April 2027, worth about £1,100 a year to a typical venue. Broader reform is expected at the Budget.
When is the Budget and why does it matter to Crawley?
Wednesday 28 October 2026. It matters because the Chancellor has signalled the first announcements were only a first step. Small business rates relief and how much revenue a Sussex mayor eventually keeps locally are both still open questions.
Will the Gatwick runway decision change how lenders see Manor Royal?
Gradually, yes. Around 14,000 jobs and roughly £1bn a year for the regional economy strengthens the occupier story, and a strong occupier story is what underpins rental income. Lenders lend against income far more than against optimism.
My bank turned me down. Is that the end of it?
No. Challenger and specialist banks made up 60% of gross SME bank lending in 2025, against 39% in 2012. A decline is one lender's view of your business, not the market's.
Should I wait until after the Budget to arrange finance?
I would not. Agreements in principle and valuations take weeks, and there is usually a rush afterwards. If something changes on 28 October we can adjust, and it is far easier to adjust a live application than to start one cold.
Figures correct as at 20 August 2026. Policy positions described as proposed remain subject to confirmation at the Autumn Budget on 28 October 2026.
David Farmer has over 30 years in finance, including as a credit underwriter, and founded Lime Finance Solutions in 2012. FCA Authorised. ALIBF Qualified. Commercial mortgages, business lending, property and development finance.
Date Published: 26/08/2026