Urban&Civic

We all enjoyed hosting members of the planning and policy team from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at Houlton School yesterday for their away day. A big thank you to Michael McCulley, the founding Principal of Houlton School, for welcoming everyone and setting the collaborative tone for the day (especially as it was half term).

A week ago today the Urban&Civic and Catesby Estates teams gathered up in Newark, at the amazing YMCA Newark and Sherwood Village, close to our Middlebeck site. Our Away Day included a welcome from the Middlebeck team, updates from across the business, a look back at the planning system over the last 14 years and a look forward to the NPPF and beyond. This was all interspersed with some funny and creative mini films by our teams on topics such as our electric car scheme, our employee advisory group and a bike, car, boat, foot and bus race from Newark Station to Middlebeck. This year our theme was active travel and we were joined for our panel discussion by Graham Grant of Active Travel England, Julian Scriven of Brompton Bicycle, Rachel Toms of Sustrans and Matt Lamb of Newark and Sherwood District Council. The discussion was both informative and inspiring and provided some helpful hints on a range of topics including, how to unfold and fold a Brompton Bike most efficiently. This came in handy for our sports day the following day where that was one of the events alongside rounders, track and field, blindfold ping pong ball passing and wall climbing. Many thanks to all the team that helped make this possible especially, Johanne Thomas, Katie Yates, Harry Stewart, Caroline May, Mark Redding and Madalyn Smith. For more information on careers at Urban&Civic have a look at our website and check out the video below.

Wonderful to support this new solar/wind power defibrillator at Houlton Rugby and OurJay Foundation in their amazing work.

The acquisition of L&Q Estates by Urban&Civic and Catesby Estates has now completed. For more information please go to: https://lnkd.in/eheAf478

We are happy to announce that the agreement for Urban&Civic to acquire L&Q Estates from L&Q is now unconditional and will complete shortly. “We were delighted to be afforded the opportunity to acquire L&Q Estates, a business that we have admired since the inception of Urban&Civic and with which we are fully familiar. The purchase presents a singular opportunity to integrate complementary projects and expertise, whilst also expanding our portfolio into key target geographies, most notably Milton Keynes. “It is simply infeasible to meet adequate housing targets in South East England without a greater contribution from strategic sites. The acquisition promises a step change for Urban&Civic and Catesby Estates as the new Government looks at immediate means by which housing numbers can be lifted. “Collectively, the enlarged group has gathered a lot of learnings to create best practice in amenity and landscape led master development. I expect this knowledge and experience to prove invaluable in the changed political environment. We can also help inject new competition into the housebuilding process by encouraging the participation of an otherwise apparently inexorably reducing number of SMEs across a broader range of projects. Seeing is believing but the acquisition will enable us to push harder again on new, amenity led, strategic housing development." Nigel Hugill - Chief Executive of Urban&Civic

Our Johanne Thomas is speaking at this really important Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) conference on "Developing well – creating places and spaces where children and young people thrive." on 18th June. Get your tickets via the link below.

Sharing ideas and best practice with colleagues from Sport England, Active Travel England and David Lock Associates Ltd up at Holton last Friday was a great way to end the week. It was made even more special by getting to hear from the pupils Houlton School on how they travel to and from school and what would make it easier for them to do so by foot, bike and bus.

Great to be teaming up with the Wheatsheaf Brewery to host our inaugural Beer Festival in The Pavilion at Alconbury Weald from 11.30am to 10pm on 13 and 14th April. Alconbury Weald Campus #beerfestival #wheatsheafbrewery #masterdeveloper #communityevents

Urban&Civic's biodiversity journey started over 10 years ago with a simple desire to deliver great green infrastructure. Large scale sites have the capacity to deliver significant green spaces both as single areas and also as green networks that flow through the community. Investment in green infrastructure delivers not only biodiversity net gain but also visual and physical amenity, sustainable transport routes, habitats for protected species, community spaces, education opportunities and so much more as this series of images from Alconbury, Houlton, Wintringham, Waterbeach, Priors Hall and Houlton again shows. We started measuring the biodiversity net gain against the Warwickshire and Coventry toolkit back in 2017/18 and swapped to the statutory metric in 2021/22. This increased the level of biodiversity net gain recorded and so we upped our biodiversity Sustainability Target to 25%. We report on progress each year as part of our Natural Sustainability Metrics - https://lnkd.in/gsNRYeyk Having studied what works since we started recording and developed a series of tools to help our team maximize biodiversity net gain its empowering that these levels are achievable on site. Its also very rewarding to see the importance that the communities place on green infrastructure whether that be in direct feedback, Instagram posts and/or community events to learn about and help deliver more great green spaces. Many thanks to all the partners we've worked with on our journey so far. Lots more to do and challenges to address but biodiversity net gain is a fantastic outcome for all stakeholders. #biodiversity #biodiversitynetgain Natural England Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Alconbury Weald Campus Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Houlton School Bradley Murphy Design (BMD) Planit Churchman Thornhill Finch

Ian Farmer is looking for a Senior Project Manager to join their team. This is an exciting opportunity to play a crucial role in the successful delivery of the Wellcome Genome Campus Expansion. Do you know anyone who might be interested in this position?