Jon Bloor, MD of our Western Division, announces the sale of a site in Melton Mowbray in his latest activity round-up:
I won’t start my thoughts on the second half of the year for the Western Division by saying much about Covid-related woes. I think we can all agree that it has dominated our lives for most of 2020 – and for the vast majority of us (unless you sell PPE or you bought shares in Zoom in January!) – it has really been a bit of a year to forget.
Or maybe that’s a bit of an overreaction; as importantly for us – and I’m sure most of the people reading this – the housebuilding industry has held up incredibly well through the worst of the pandemic and is now in somewhat of a mini boom.
How long this will last once the stamp duty holiday / Help to Buy changes / wider economic impacts of Brexit (if it ever happens) have taken hold in 2021, no-one knows…but I’m optimistic that the underlying lack of supply of quality sites with planning permission across the country will ensure that strong demand from housebuilders remains for our sites.
The rest of this update hopefully illustrates such quality sites in quality locations that are coming forward in the Western Division – and it’s also fair to say that we’re still on the look-out for further quality additions to our portfolio. So please do contact me or any of the wider Western Division Team (contact details at the bottom of this article) with any potential opportunities.
Time will tell if I’m correct, but fingers crossed that I’ll be reporting plenty of new allocations, permissions and sales to our housebuilder partners by the time I next report on our Division in the middle of next year.
Until then, enjoy your Christmas break; and myself and the rest of ‘Team West’ look forward to seeing you (hopefully in person and not just via a video call!) early on in 2021.
All the best,
Jon Bloor
Managing Director – Western Division: jonathan@richborough.co.uk
Team contact details:
Nick Jones, Regional Director (Midlands): nickj@richborough.co.uk
Haydn Jones, Planning Director: haydn@richborough.co.uk
Harry Jackson, Regional Manager (North): harry@richboroughetsates.co.uk
Joe Jones, Senior Land & Planning Manager: joe@richborough.co.uk
Alanna Mahoney, Assistant Land & Planning Manager: alanna@richborough.co.uk
Sale of Melton Mowbray site to Bloor Homes
We are very pleased to report that we have sold our allocated site located off Scalford Road in Melton Mowbray to Bloor Homes.
The site will deliver 400 homes, over two hectares of expansion land for the adjoining secondary school, affordable homes, extensive open space and both a financial contribution and key land for the Melton Mowbray Disturber Road (a key piece of infrastructure on which the Melton North allocation – c. 3,000 homes in total – was underpinned by).
This is a site we began promoting on behalf of the landowner (a local educational charity) in 2013 and is a great example of the commitment we have to plan-led strategic land. Following extensive promotion work, we secured an allocation in the now adopted local plan in 2018. We subsequently secured an outline planning consent in 2019 which set the development parameters for our housebuilder partners to base their offers on.
It is also an important example of the impacts of Covid on what we do. We originally had a sale agreed with a different housebuilder but this fell through due to the (understandable) concerns around Covid.
Bloor Homes, however, ‘stepped in’ and were exceptional in how they went about negotiating the deal with us and our landowner. We are very grateful to them and we look forward to seeing their first homes come out of the ground next year.
Ottershaw, Runneymede, Surrey site secures Allocation
We’re also delighted that our site at Brox Road, Ottershaw, Surrey, has been allocated in the newly-adopted Runnymede 2030 Local Plan.
Known as Ottershaw East, the site was located in the Metropolitan Green Belt and will include at least 200 homes as well as a new GP surgery.
Local Plan inspector Mary Travers confirmed there were exceptional circumstances which justified the site’s release from the Green Belt. We will also deliver more than 17 acres of Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space (SANG) along with a significant quantum of affordable homes and other financial contributions such as schools, highways and community infrastructure levy.
Our outline planning application is to be submitted early in 2021 and we expect to marketing the site to prospective housebuilder partners in the Spring.
Please contact me for further details.
New Sites added to the Portfolio
As noted at the start of this update, we continue to add quality sites to our portfolio. In the past month we have entered into Promotion Agreements in Bidford-on-Avon (Stratford District) – and Market Weighton (East Riding of Yorkshire).
We are still seeking new opportunities so please do contact us with any sites that you may have.