It’s hard to believe that we’re heading towards the end of January 2019 already!
Even though it is true the position of the market and the underlying demand for housing in the UK continues to grow, there are wider political and economic issues on the horizon such as Brexit – and other factors outside of our control – still in play.
Even so, we look forward to 2019 with cautious optimism and fully expect it to be another busy year. You’ll see from the link below that we welcome a number of new staff to the business. We need their expertise to help deliver across our 100 site portfolio. Up to 75% of these sites are Green Belt opportunities demanding involved and complex plan-led promotion activity.
Even with 222,194 homes built across the UK in the last 12 months, this is still almost 80,000 fewer than the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year and according to recent research undertaken by Lichfields, land promoters are bringing forward approximately 50% of all outline residential planning permissions. We expect to be playing a full part in this growing sector both during this year and beyond.
It will be interesting to see what materialises regarding the subject of Land Value Capture Tax. We have been making the point that councils aren’t deploying CIL or S106 contributions as quickly as they could and we are using our membership of the Land Promoters and Developers Federation (LPDF) in an attempt to support and improve the current system. Read more on this in our national news section.
With best wishes for the year ahead.
Karl Parkinson-Witte
Joint Managing Director, Richborough Estates