Our experienced in-house planning team, with backgrounds gained from house builders, consultancy and local authorities, is highly commercially focused - ensuring that both development value and design quality are maximised throughout the promotion and development process.
Working very closely with our engineering department throughout the planning stages, we ensure that development costs are properly managed by identifying the most cost effective and innovative infrastructure design solutions.
Key to the success of every site is our commitment to working and engaging with the local community. We pride ourselves on the efforts we go to in ensuring we fully understand the needs of the local community, with the L&Q Estates team taking a lead role in engaging with local residents, stakeholders, community groups, parish and town councils, ward members and politicians.
Our extensive experience in dealing with sites of all sizes and complexity means there are few issues we have not come across before. Whether highways, drainage, flooding or site remediation problems, we are able to find a cost- effective solution, enabling us to unlock complex sites where others may have failed before.
Our in-house technical/construction team sets us apart from many of our competitors. Involved in our site promotion from conception to the very end of the development, we ensure that our master plans are created with one eye firmly on the provision and delivery of site-wide strategic infrastructure.
This thorough and detailed approach also ensures that all aspects of the overall infrastructure package are rigorously tested and value engineered to ensure our vision for the overall development is delivered in the most cost-effective way possible.
Undertaking the negotiation of section 38, 104 and 278 agreements and designing, pricing, tendering and delivering site-wide infrastructure not only ensures the prompt delivery of our sites to the market but also serves to reduce house-builder contingencies and lead-in times, thereby maximising land values.
Having acquired an interest in the land, secured planning and either partly or fully serviced the site with infrastructure, our development team sell fully serviced “oven-ready” and de-risked parcels to a combination of PLC and SME house builders.
Our unique approach to servicing larger sites allows us to create a multitude of different sized development tranches. This enables us to sell to numerous house builders to suit their size and return on capital requirements.
In turn, this not only ensures we maximise land values but also enables us to deliver developments at a far faster pace than many of our competitors. This assists local authorities in keeping up with their housing delivery targets and ensuring that we are at the forefront of helping to solve the national housing shortage.
“It’s fantastic to work with L&Q Estates who take their role as a master developer seriously. A true master developer is one that isn’t just focused on getting sites through the planning process, but one that has an eye to the future and the people that will one day live in the streets and spaces they create alongside their development partners.
L&Q Estates has a knack of balancing commercial and technical considerations with the opportunity - and need - to create well-designed new communities.
Regulatory constraints and the trials of securing planning consent can often curtail a client’s appetite for place making, but this is what makes L&Q Estates quite different. Despite these constraints, L&Q Estates is always looking for ways to work around these constraints and create better places for people to live, work and play in.
I am given the freedom to help L&Q Estates create places people will want to live in and stay for years. As an urban designer, you couldn’t ask for a better client. ”
Dr. Stefan Kruczkowski, Urban Designer
