Built Environment Networking – Q&A for 26 June 2019 Milton Keynes

Andrew Taylor, Director – Head of Planning, Countryside

Countryside Properties is a major UK housebuilding and urban regeneration company. Tell us a little bit more about the company?

Countryside is a leading UK home builder specialising in place making and urban regeneration. For the year ended 30 September 2018 we completed 4,295 homes.

Our business is focused on placemaking which we deliver through our two divisions, Housebuilding and Partnerships. The Housebuilding division, operating under the Countryside and Millgate brands, develops sites that provide private and affordable housing, on land owned or controlled by the Group. Our Partnerships division specialises in urban regeneration of public sector land, delivering private and affordable homes by partnering with local authorities and housing associations.

Countryside was founded in 1958. It operates in locations across London, the South East, the North West of England and East and West Midlands.

Historically you’ve been operating across London, the north west and the South East – so the Oxford Cambridge ARC is somewhere which you’ve already been actively working, but has the focus on delivering improved infrastructure between the two varsity cities made you invest more heavily in the area?

[emaillocker id=”71749″]

Yes. The Arc is a key growth area generally and we are keen to be participating. The infrastructure provision instils confidence in us to bring forward sites for new development. While infrastructure should come forward as part of new development, the larger strategic provision should be brought forward by government working with local councils.

What specific projects are you working on already in the area?

We have schemes in Bicester, Milton Keynes and Cambridge, amongst others, and are promoting other schemes across the Arc as part of Local Plan reviews.

And are you actively looking at any other sites to continue development in the area?

We continue to look for strategic site promotions across the arc area. These range in size from 50 homes to over 4,000 homes with associated infrastructure and social facilities. We are keen to increase our presence in this important area and are actively seeking new sites.

Countryside Properties will be speaking at our Oxford Cambridge Arc Development Conference on the 20th of June! View full programme for more details >

There is talk of around 1m new homes needing to be delivered across this area, and new communities, towns and cities are all part of the proposed agenda. As a housebuilder how do you go around integrating a new community into the existing fabric of the area?

At Countryside, we’ve always taken a design-led approach to our developments. This stems from our founder, Alan Cherry, who was an original member of The Urban Task Force, which sought to promote social wellbeing and involve neighbourhoods in the planning processes. As a result, our work is shaped by the belief that we don’t build houses but create sustainable communities.

Ultimately, both public and private sectors have the same aims. Developers are investing in a community by increasing housing stock, creating new amenities, transport links, and retail and leisure space. By improving the wider environment, people’s lives are similarly improved – jobs are created, commutes are made easier, forgotten green spaces are revived. Yes, developers are primarily motivated by financial gains but local authorities also benefit, not just from improved facilities for communities, but also from a long-term increase in business rates and council tax revenues.

To get the best for communities whilst replenishing housing stock, developers and town councils must put away their distrust and build productive, engaged relationships.

Land surrounding the Oxford Cambridge ARC is known for the its natural beauty. How do you approach that when delivering a high volume of houses to ensure it’s in keeping with the beautiful backdrop and has minimal impact on the environment?

There is often an imbalance between the importance placed on building architecture and that placed on landscape. This can lead to buildings that may well have individual design strengths being out of place or not being integrated into the urban realm. Creating a cohesive and integrated community requires a combination of architecture suited to the local vernacular and intelligent design that uses the latest proven solutions alongside open spaces suited to residents’ needs – whether that is for walking your dog or taking a jog.

Having a landscape-led approach to master planning allows us to produce development schemes which can integrate well with the existing landscape and improve the accessibility of open space.

Countryside Properties will be speaking at our Oxford Cambridge Arc Development Conference on the 20th of June! View full programme for more details >

To deliver the number of homes touted for the area there will need to be an acceleration of delivery. One of the key areas for improvement is the amount of time it can take to get the first spade in the ground. What changes would you make to the planning process to make it quicker?

A greater investment is needed in local planning departments. It is easy to say that the government should provide more funding to planning departments if it wants to accelerate housing delivery, but we must keep in mind that resources are finite, and we need to consider other ways of solving this problem.

Exacerbating this under-resourcing is an apparent lack of respect for the importance of planning within local government. A separate survey by the RTPI last year found that 83% of UK councils put planning two or three tiers down from the chief executive, demonstrating once again that, while housing delivery is supposedly top of the agenda for central government, that is not borne out at a local level.

Finding and retaining the very best talent is also crucial. We need to start cultivating talent earlier and so apprenticeships and planning bursaries are a great start, but we need more of them.

Developers are keen to accelerate housing delivery, and most are willing to pay increased fees for a service that gives a timely planning decision. Planning performance agreements are going some way towards that and the councils doing it well are able to use private money to improve resourcing in their planning departments. But for these to work, authorities need to ensure that the money raised is not diverted elsewhere.

The planning system is not broken, but it is critically under-resourced. If tackling the housing crisis is genuinely important to the government, and if we want to solve it in the best possible way, we need to recognise the vital role that local authority planning departments play – and resource them accordingly.

Countryside Properties will be speaking at our Oxford Cambridge Arc Development Conference on the 20th of June! View full programme for more details >

In terms of modular and modern methods of construction Countryside Properties is once again at the forefront. Tell us a little about what you’re doing in this area and what your plans are for the future?

At Countryside, we constantly look to future proof the work we do and this has resulted in us investing considerably in modern methods of construction (MMC). According to the government’s industrial strategy, MMC has the potential to reform the residential construction sector to meet its target of 300,000 new homes being built each year, and a million in all between 2017 and 2020.

Having started full production in March at our modular timber frame factory in Warrington, we are already on course to deliver 500 off-site homes this year and will eventually be able to produce 1,500 homes each year. Working with the likes of the government’s housing accelerator, Homes England, and the GLA, we recognise that speed and precision is needed to deliver high quality homes.

Although you work heavily across the North West, South East and London you’ve also been acquiring sites across the Midlands and Yorkshire recently. Why are those locations becoming more attractive to work in?

Having acquired partnerships homebuilder Westleigh last year, we believe that there is vast potential in these areas by combining Westleigh’s regional expertise with the Countryside mixed tenure business model. As these regions develop further and infrastructure improves becoming key hubs for businesses, housebuilding is crucial to their economic success and new job creation.

For firms interested in working alongside Countryside Properties, what values and ethics must they have, and how would they register an interest in working alongside you on projects?

Countryside’s ethos is all about creating places people love. Ultimately, we are a business that looks to create social value as well as economic value. England has long suffered from poorly planned homes and communities and if we are going to truly address the housing crisis, both of these metrics must go hand in hand in building communities for generations to come.

The Oxford Cambridge ARC Development Conference is set to bring together the biggest firms from across the built environment to discuss and debate the mass opportunities presenting themselves to the region due to improved infrastructure. Why is this event an important date in the industry calendar?

This conference resonates with our own values. The Oxford Cambridge ARC is not just an opportunity for economic growth for the region, it will be leaving a legacy behind for generations to come. To make this legacy a success, there must always be discussion and collaboration among partners to constantly ensure best practice is being maintained and that what is delivered is innovative and yet meets the needs of local communities. This conference does just that – celebrating the collaborative approach we are all taking and ensuring the Arc has a really bright future.

[/emaillocker]

Countryside Properties will be speaking at our Oxford Cambridge Arc Development Conference on the 20th of June! View full programme for more details >