Following our Land Matters report released earlier this year with Savills and the Land, Planning and Developers Federation, Jonathan Bloor, Managing Director of our Western Division has been invited to speak at a dedicated Place North event on housing.
The half-day conference is focused on the role of SME housebuilders in meeting the UK’s recently increased housing targets and specifically on solutions to resolve the barriers these smaller operators face. These were highlighted in our summer 2024 report which noted that the number of sites gaining consent had plummeted to its lowest level in 15 years primarily due to the decline in approvals for smaller sites.
Jonathan and his team work daily with agents, housebuilders and landowners trying to overcome these issues to help meet the Labour Government’s new target of 370,000 homes per annum.
Jonathan Bloor said: “Even before the Government announced its ambitious new targets we were calling for a radical overhaul in our planning system to help unlock sites of 250 plots or less. From our research we highlighted that supporting SME housebuilders could help deliver up to 1 million new homes on sites that are usually easier to develop so can be completed more quickly – something that’s needed now more than ever with the increase in targets.”
The conference is taking place on 13th February in Manchester. Book your ticket here.
Also on the panel are: Sam Stafford, planning director of the Home Builders Federation; Chris Williamson, president-elect at RIBA; Angel Mansell, managing director, Mansell Building Solutions; Andrew Evans, deputy CEO for VM Finance, Phil Cooper, director at Hope Architects, Emily Williams, director at Savills, Michelle Parry, head of development finance at Homes England and David Saville, managing director North West for Caddick.