Grosvenor Britain & Ireland announces it is seeking to triple the size of its Strategic Land business, targeting a portfolio of at least 30,000 homes within the next five years.

• Target portfolio of at least 30,000 homes within five years
• Focus on quality of new communities’ design and infrastructure as well as pace of home delivery

Grosvenor Britain & Ireland announces it is seeking to triple the size of its Strategic Land business, targeting a portfolio of at least 30,000 homes within the next five years.
 
Led by the recently appointed Executive Director for Grosvenor Developments, Jorge Mendonça, Grosvenor’s Strategic Land team aims to be the market leader for delivering large scale sustainable communities by focussing on progressive and high quality urban design innovations, which are sensitive to local communities and the environment.
 
Jorge Mendonça, Executive Director, Grosvenor Developments, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, said: “The concept of a master developer as the steward of design quality, controlling delivery and creating a genuine legacy for both our partners and local communities sits well with our track record, ethos and purpose as a business. For us, enhancing the scale and speed of delivery in areas of acute need is not enough – we want to create communities people are proud to live in and benefit from. Both quantity and quality must be weighted equally in all considerations.”
 
The business will identify and support the taking of complex parcels of brownfield and greenfield land capable of hosting 2,000-5,000+ homes through the planning system, design and build out process. Typically these sites will be located in areas of economic growth where the need for new homes is most acute.
 
Grosvenor has already built its pipeline of homes from 2,100 in summer 2017 to 9,300 today, with partners including a range of local authorities, corporate and private land owners.
 
The expansion programme will build on Grosvenor’s recent successes, which include:

• Trumpington Meadows, Cambridgeshire – an award winning partnership with the Universities Superannuation Scheme creating a distinctive community south west of Cambridge with over 1,200 homes of mixed tenure, size and type and with facilities on a site which is 80% open space.

• Barton Park, Oxfordshire – one of the most advanced NHS Healthy New Towns delivering c900 homes of mixed tenure, size and type in partnership with Oxford City Council. Barton Park was selected as one of 10 NHS Healthy New Towns, which promote health and wellbeing through design innovations, from a field of over 110 applicants.

Alex Robinson, Director of Development, Strategic Land, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, said: “Barton Park and Trumpington Meadows are great examples of the difference a master developer can make in the creation of new communities. In each we delivered an exceptional range of infrastructure and amenities ahead of schedule, which will ensure these developments not only stand the test of time but make them places people are proud to live in. Our ethos, the way we engage with partners and communities and the quality of the end product are increasingly resonating with public and private partners. The success of these projects has seen us to expand in Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire and create new partnerships in Essex.”
 
The growth of the master developer role
 
The structural undersupply of housing in the UK and the impact this has on overcrowding, affordability, impaired labour mobility and access to talent is well recognised.
 
The recently published Letwin report, which focused on the significant gap between housing completions and land allocated for housing cited the packaging of larger sites in to smaller sites as one key way to unlock new quality housing at scale.
 
By splitting large development sites in to smaller plots which can be worked on concurrently, master developer led builds can achieve in faster delivery backed by the creation of enhanced infrastructure and community amenity.
 
The revised NPPF published in late July also focussed on housing delivery and its four key aims centered on both improving the pace of delivery but also quality of the ultimate design, environmental outcomes and quality of community delivered.
 
Jorge Mendonça added: “There is growing recognition from government that the master developer role could be the best way to deliver new housing at scale, particularly in areas of acute need. However, it is a complex role that requires patient capital. It demands well-funded long term investors, with an ingrained partnership approach and significant placemaking expertise all of which Grosvenor has an exceptional track record in.”