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Three years ago Lord Rogers reported on the findings of the Urban Task Force and called for an Urban Summit to take forward work on renewal. The summit finally took place last week, but other change is taking a long time to implement. Can we actually deliver? Are we challenged with an impossible task – or are we just being too optimistic about the scale of the challenge?

The Urban Task Force's work was important for the housing industry. For example, one of the issues that the taskforce was charged with was to figure out how many new homes were required by 2021 in the UK. In case you've forgotten, it's 3.8 million; that's an average of 158,000 new homes a year.

The taskforce's work brought out some useful statistics relating to urban areas, for example:

• urban areas in England account for 90% of population and 91% of the economic output
  
• the public sector spends more than £200bn a year on English towns and cities and the people who live there
  
• by 2021 it is estimated that in England alone, 19% more houses will be needed, mostly in urban areas
  
• 40% of inner urban area housing stock is subsidised social housing.

These are massive numbers, massive issues and a massive challenge for the "urban industry". Sadly, there is general apathy within the sector.

Look at the number of private sector organisations attending the Urban Summit conference compared to delegates from the public sector – my guess is about 80% of the attendees were directly or indirectly related to the public sector. Some critics even called the summit a waste of time, saying the Motor Show was a more interesting proposition. What hope do we have in this kind of climate?

Housing developers should take note: the urban agenda will become more and more important for housebuilders, both in the private and public sectors. We are all being forced to make the use of buildings and land to help achieve our housing development targets.

The challenge at any future urban summit is for half of the attendees to be deliverers and half to be policy makers

Given that so many in the sector are involved in delivery, the Urban Summit seemed to focus rather heavily on policy issues.

Surely there is more to be done than just endlessly reformulating policies?

Work by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and others has indicated the worrying lack of deliverers in the marketplace, which results in poor delivery on the ground. There is a risk that the urban industry will be populated by policymakers, rather than people who deliver.

Don't get me wrong, we need the policy, but we equally need delivery. Major developers and the property industry highlight the benefit of "strong leadership" from the public sector in delivering major regeneration, renewal and renaissance projects.

The public sector needs to learn new skills in terms of delivery and implementation of strategy and policy. We need leaders, we need better education, we need experience. The challenge at any future urban summit is for half of the attendees to be deliverers and half to be policymakers.