Viability for urban regeneration schemes is the most challenging in 40 years, according to pioneering developer Urban Splash.
Speaking to Construction Manager Tom Bloxham, who founded the firm in the 1980s, said: “I’ve been working for 40 years in our property development. It’s probably the hardest time, viability-wise, I’ve seen in those 40 years.”
Bloxham said navigating the planning system was particularly difficult, being both expensive and time-consuming.
He said the first Urban Splash mixed-use scheme took around three months to get planning and “I think cost us 12 grand”. He said an equivalent project “will probably cost three or four hundred thousand pounds, take two or three years”.
Bloxham added: “I’m not at all convinced there are any better outcomes from the whole planning process that we’re seeing today than we saw 20 or 30 years ago.”
Bloxham said it was recognised that pump-priming regeneration schemes was required to improve viability. He said: “I think that’s very important.”
Liverpool scheme boost for Urban Splash
Urban Splash received a boost last week with a legal agreement being signed for an 800-home scheme in south Liverpool. The firm, in a joint venture with Igloo, was selected by Liverpool City Council for the 27-acre Festival Gardens project.
The site once formed part of the International Garden Festival celebrations launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1984. The new neighbourhood will bring together “nature, great design, and an inclusive mix of homes to create a community with a distinctive quality”, the city council said.
Urban Splash and Igloo plan to deliver around 30 different house types at the site, offering a range of different tenures: co-housing, social rent, mixed-tenure family homes, retirement living, and self-build are all planned.
