Spawforths

Our chairman David Rolinson sat on the panel at Place Yorkshire's Industrial and Logistics event yesterday, whilst the overall sentiment was one of optimism, the planning system was widely considered to be the main brake to investment and growth. Spawforths have extensive experience delivering I&L projects through allocation to completion. If you need any town planning advice on any I&L matters please get in touch with Hannah Richardson Gavin Winter Andrew Rose David Rolinson at Spawforths

Earlier this year I became a trustee at Scarborough Museums and Galleries and we are now looking to expand the board as we embark on the next stage of the organisations evolution. If you are interested in learning more please click on the link below or give me (or one of the other trustees) a call and we can explain what we are after and planning on doing over the next few years. For more infomation go to https://lnkd.in/e-WEBzV4 Sally Gorham

We're #hiring a new Planner/Senior Planner/Principal Planner in Leeds, England. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We're #hiring a new Planner/Senior Planner/Principal Planner in Leeds, England. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We're #hiring a new Planner/Senior Planner/Principal Planner in Leeds, England. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We at Spawforths really enjoyed the topping out ceremony The Store house on Briggate in Leeds today. Manner are a fantastic client delivering top quality Student accommodation in Leeds City Centre and Spawforths are really pleased to have provided planning consultanty advice to allow all this to happen. The photo is of the leader of Leeds City Council who worked collaboratively and proactively with us to achieve this high street regeneration.

📍 Leeds Vision - Unlocking stalled sites 📍 This is the last in a series of Spawforths posts about the importance of the delivery of ‘stalled sites’. Previous posts have looked at the issue on a site by site basis. A great example of a more comprehensive approach is ’A vision for Leeds – a decade of city centre growth and wider prosperity’ which was published as part of the Budget.   It is a long-term Transformational Regeneration Partnership vision between Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Homes England and Leeds City Council to establish and deliver a 10 year programme of change and investment in Leeds centre and the city-rim. This is a great example of both vision and governance to accelerate the delivery of upwards of 20,000 homes. These homes will (for the most part) however be delivered by the private sector who in Spawforths' view need to both pro-actively engage with this strategic framework approach but also identify and unlock specific site opportunities. David Rolinson in his role as joint chair of the planning and housing forum of West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce and on behalf of Spawforths’ clients is heavily involved in unlocking sites within this vision area. If you want to understand more about the Leeds vision or other Public Sector led initiatives to unlock stalled sites then please contact us as the go to planners, masterplanners and architects. https://lnkd.in/ex7M7cEB

🗝 Unlocking stalled sites – keys to the door 🗝 Next in Spawforths series of posts about ‘unlocking stalled sites’ is our approach to the skills and expertise needed to unlock them. As we noted in our earlier posts, sites can be stalled by delays in the planning process; due to land ownership; due to infrastructure deficits; due to politics or stakeholder matters; or due to market changes and/or viability. Our solutions can include growing the size of the sites or phasing their delivery to address cashflow and viability issues; looking at alternatives uses (or mixes of uses); alternative building scales and typologies; and alternative funding and partnership delivery models. Our planning, masterplanning and architectural teams can work directly with landowners to address these issues or introduce the landowner to one of our key clients, to assess why the sites have stalled and how we can take an alternative approach to their delivery. There is no one size fits all but many of our key clients are developing alternative delivery vehicles and we see our role as supporting this approach through our holistic approach to the problem and by marrying these site opportunities to proactive Developers. If you would like to discuss our approaches further, please contact David Rolinson, Andrew Rose or Stephen Courcier.

🏘 5 year housing land supply – an alternative view 🏘 5 year Housing Land Supply Assessments and Employment Land Assessments often involve a detailed forensic analysis and argument between Councils and Developers to prove whether a series of sites are deliverable in planning terms. Spawforths, through our ‘unlocking stalled sites’ initiative, we turn this approach inside out. Rather than proving a negative, we see these sites as opportunities. Our planning, masterplanning and architectural teams assess why such sites have stalled and how we can take an alternative approach to their delivery. They may be stalled by delays in the planning process; due to land ownership; due to infrastructure deficits; due to politics or stakeholder matters; or due to market changes and/or viability. Since they have been identified in these Assessment documents, there will be an expectation that they will be delivered and hence at Spawforths we often receive a positive and supportive reception from most key decision makers to our alternative approaches to secure their delivery. If you would like to discuss our approaches further, please contact David Rolinson, Andrew Rose or Stephen Courcier.

🗺 Unlocking Stalled sites – part of the overall solution 🗺 Next in Spawforths' review of ‘unlocking stalled sites’ is our focus upon how they fit within a Client or Local Authority portfolio. Many Local Authorities have paused their Local Plan making process due to changes in the national planning framework and/or local political pressure to reduce the scale of ambition. Whilst in our view there is still a massively important role for new housing and employment allocations derived through a new Local Plan, the timescale for securing these allocations has in many cases gone back 2–5 years and hence many housing and employment developers have a 2–5 year ‘hole’ in their forward order book of developments. Unlocking appropriate ‘stalled sites’ can fill this ‘hole’ whilst at the same time delivering significant regeneration, sustainability and social value benefits. Unlocking stalled sites is therefore a short term win which meets current development industry requirements. If you would like to understand more about Spawforths 'stalled sites' approach, please contact David Rolinson, Andrew Rose or Stephen Courcier.