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Simons cycling to Cannes

February 9th, 2011 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Simon Gawthorpe

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So why?

Why have I been spending time sat in my garage at -6°C on a stationary bike staring at my lawn mower? Why have I got a large stack of unread property weeks piling up on the desk and yet their isn’t an article I’ve missed in Cycling Weekly? Why am I trying to think when I might grab on hour or so on the bike? Why am I putting up with constant ridicule including from my wife who every time I venture out in full kit comments ‘you just look like a big condom!’?

Well a number of reasons:

The charity - five amazing and different charities will benefit from Cycle to Cannes and they all need valuable support to keep up their good work. The challenge – It’s a while since I took up a personal challenge and assuming I finish I hope to enjoy the sense of achievement doing this will bring. The business - having had a year off from MIPIM last year, I think being in a team with a number of similiar’ish people from the industry in the current climate on the way to MIPIM could be extremely beneficial. The age thing - Something to tick off the ‘things to do before I’m 40 list’ which I am running out of time to do sooner than I would like to admit! 40 this year! And actually even though I got into cycling quite late I think I quite like it!

From 8th-11th March, our Directors Tom Bloxham, Nick Johnson, Nathan Cornish and Simon Gawthorpe will be at MIPIM, Cannes - drop Rachel Maren a line at rachelmaren@urbansplash.co.uk if you want to meet any of them there.

Please show your support here: www.bmycharity.com/V2/simongawthorpeC2C

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/simongawthorpe

Learn more about the event and charities here: www.cycle2cannes.org

Filed under: Urban Splash

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The housing crisis and renting

January 25th, 2011 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Tom Bloxham MBE

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Chips, New Islington, Manchester

We have been having a housing crisis for years. The difference now is that there is a total lack of finance for new building, particularly for building in big centres like Manchester.

Far from cities having an oversupply of accommodation we are seeing huge and constant demand for the housing that is available and rather than a glut there’s a short fall and it’s not going to ease any time soon. Even if a major new building was to start tomorrow it would be three or four years before it came to market - and there is little sign of anyone starting tomorrow.

The lack of finance has crippled buyers as well as builders and maybe it’s time we reassessed how housing is provided in Britain.

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Saxton, Leeds

Brits have a peculiar desire to own their own home but it’s an attitude that’s changing. It may have been borne out of necessity but for many people renting is now the preferred option and we should be doing more to accommodate that shift.

Increased mobility for work, the costs of moving, difficulty in securing finance, the freedom to quickly change accommodation costs if circumstances change are all making sense to a new generation and we have to respond.

The UK rental market has to become much more professional and better policed. Tenants have to know that the place they are renting will be permanently available and that the landlord won’t suddenly decide to sell up and buy a place in Spain.

Just because you can’t or don’t want to buy a place of your own does not mean you should not have a place of your own and we need to address that if we are to address the housing crisis.

At Urban Splash we currently have around 400 apartments to rent and we are looking to double that in the next two years. We want to build up a brand of homes that will be permanently for rent, managed in-house by us, and sprinkled through our developments.

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Rotunda, Birmingham

There needs to be more institutional investment in residential development such as they have in most of the other European cities. People who like the idea of investing in property may not want to tie themselves to one individual apartment but would be happy to be part of a larger fund.

The yields may not be that huge at the moment but there is vast potential and the funds would create a new asset class, investing in the future housing infrastructure of the country, building high quality, well managed blocks to rent out.

It is time that the Government looked to giving tax breaks to companies and individuals prepared to invest in schemes like this. It helped before with the Business Expansion Scheme and it could be a way to re-invigorate the market again.

But unlike in the past homes for rent should not be second best or inferior. What separates Urban Splash from others is our ability to build great buildings (not one to brag but 300 awards at the last count) and the way we can transform areas such as Castlefield and New Islington.

In cash rich Monaco most people rent, in New York properties are only available to rent and in Europe renting is the norm. I see Britain going the same way but it needs a structural change to make it happen.

This first appeared as an opinion piece in M.E.N. Business Weekly on 19th January 2011.

Filed under: Affordable homes, Tom Bloxham MBE, Urban Splash

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My favourite hotel rooms…

January 7th, 2011 [ 1 comment ] [ Add comment ]
by Tom Bloxham MBE

I love staying in great hotels!…

They give me inspiration, I get new ideas and they challenge perceived wisdoms.

Here are four of my favourite rooms.

Room 606 SAS Raddison in Copenhagan

This room is a legend and there is even a book about it. Built in 1960 The SAS Hotel was Arne Jacobsen’s masterpiece. His famous Egg and Swan chairs were designed specifically for this hotel. In fact everything from furniture and door handles to cutlery was designed just for this project (only after visiting did I realise my home cutlery was from here). Unfortunately the hotel like so many other great modernist buildings has been recently “Modernised” or in my view Bastardised. You can still see the vision in areas but most of the best parts have been stripped out and only one room remains as originally designed, yes 606. The irony is this sells now for four times the rate of the “refurbished” rooms.

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Rotunda Penthouses, Birmingham by Staying Cool

Top floor of Urban Splash’s Rotunda right in the centre of Brum. Great penthouse flats, but let by the day like hotel rooms. Great furniture, amazing views and loads of space. The place to stay that’s a real penthouse.

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Bali Cliff Necker Island

This room on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island is not necessarily my style, it is a Balinese type house but what I love is the bathroom, which has no walls. On three sides it is totally open, so when you are sat on the throne (and yes there is a crown by the wc!) you are exposed on all sides, luckily for others only passing seabirds could see in as the bathroom (under the bedroom) is perched on a rock with sea all around. Why do rooms need walls?

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Room 302 Midland Hotel, Morecambe

An amazing roof top room, with a hot tub on the huge terrace. I have visited here a number of times and have never not seen an amazing sunset. The building is a reminder of a different Art Deco era but our recent conversion has brought it bang up to date. The climate might be harsh, the idea of a outside bath on the roof… in north Lancashire might seem surprising, but it works, it really works!

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These are some of the great rooms I’ve been lucky enough to stay in, what’s your favourite room?

Filed under: Midland Hotel, Tom Bloxham MBE, Urban Splash

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1 comments to My favourite hotel rooms...

  1. Leanne Forshaw Jones says:
    January 7, 2011 at 11:42 am

    Nice blog Tom. Never had the good fortune to experience Necker but can vouch for the Midland recommendations. Couple of great home grown rooms too… A 12th floor suite at the Radisson Edwardian which gives amazing views of Manc. And of course the famous Charles Forte Lowry Hotel suite with the grand piano. Nice.

A rewarding, or should that be awarding, week!

November 3rd, 2010 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Emily Jones

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The spotlight’s well and truly been on our Fort Dunlop scheme in Birmingham this week…

I was extremely proud last Tuesday to have collected the ‘Economic Project of the Decade’ award from Regen WM, an award that reinforced just how great this scheme has been, the calibre of businesses who now operate from here and the jobs they’ve created. I was even more privileged to see that the building beat off stiff competition from other fantastic schemes in the area including the hugely successful Bullring.

Just a few days later we got word that the scheme had won the Renaissence award from the Civic Society acknowledging its position as one of Birmingham’s leading business destinations.

Then, just when I thought I couldn’t get any prouder of the scheme, where I’ve been letting commercial space for the past four years, the BBC called up and asked if they could do a piece for the One Show about the old and new communities of Fort Dunlop. We duly obliged and last week the piece was aired, showing the fondness that’s held for the building in and around Birmingham.

So its definitely been a great week, and I for one feel very FORTunate to work at this great place!

Filed under: Birmingham, Fort Dunlop, Urban Splash

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Au revoir to our day in the sunshine

October 14th, 2010 [ 1 comment ] [ Add comment ]
by Tom Bloxham MBE

It’s a longstanding Urban Splash tradition that when staff have worked here for 10 years (after all, you get less than that for murder!) they get treated to (the dubious pleasure) of a day out and a swanky lunch with the company Chairman (me!), as well as an additional week’s holiday that year.

In the past I’ve held this celebration in London at restaurants like Nobu or wherever’s the hottest new place. It’s a nice treat and a thank you to staff and an opportunity for me to spend some quality time with people from all different parts of the business in more informal circumstances.

This year, as a special treat, I invited staff celebrating their 10 year anniversary with the company, who were from our accounts, admin, construction and development teams, to have lunch with me at my house in the South of France as cheap Jet2 flights meant it was more economical than a trip to London.

The staff were duly excited as I drove them to the airport.

The anticipation for a nice lunch in the sunshine was palpable however, it was one of the days of French industrial action meaning that many flights were cancelled. Ours showed on schedule so we all had a drink in the bar. And another. And another… Eventually after a couple of hours we were instructed to go to the gate and even called for our final boarding but were advised by a girl in the Lounge (which I’d also managed to blag us all into) to stay put.

So we had a few more drinks and by now it was 7pm, five hours after our airport arrival. It was time to eat however instead of the delights of a posh London restaurant, or even the sunny terrace in the South of France, it was a hassled Giraffe restaurant at Manchester Airport Terminal 1; a meal that can only be described as ‘absolutely… average’.

As you can probably guess, the announcement came that the flight was cancelled. It wasn’t the day we’d all hoped for but still good fun with plenty of reminiscing of ten good years, fun staff dos and Christmas parties. I’m lucky to have such good colleagues and of course have rebooked another date to take them for a proper lunch. In the sunshine!

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Filed under: Tom Bloxham MBE, Urban Splash

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1 comments to Au revoir to our day in the sunshine

  1. Ian Halstead says:
    November 22, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    It’s been a while since I gained French O-level, but I’m still sure that the headline should read Adieu …
    The day was (sadly) ended, so it’s definitely goodbye/farewell to the plans for celebration.

Partying in the big cities

October 4th, 2010 [ 1 comment ] [ Add comment ]
by Tom Bloxham MBE

It strikes me as amazing that all three political party conferences are being held in our big cities; the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool, the Labour Party in Manchester and the Tories in Birmingham. This would have been inconceivable only a few years ago when party conferences were typically held in towns like Bournemouth, Blackpool and Harrogate with many people looking down their noses at the major cities considering them too dirty and congested, or without sufficient facilities.

The feedback I get is that delegates enjoy coming to the big city venues, are proud of the transformation they can see in these cities and are impressed with the welcome offered. The challenge now is  to keep the momentum of transformation in our cities. Our progress has taken a long time and lots of resources having been initiated by Lord Heseltine, accelerated by Lord Rogers’ taskforce and driven through by Lord Prescott.

The continual regeneration of our cities appears low on the priorities of all three parties and there’s a real danger of the progress we have seen stopping, or event going into reverse.

To see what the general opinion was I took the ‘Cab test’ and asked a driver what he thought of Labour being in Manchester. “Great for business,” he said, “but the Tories are even better. Not because of their politics but they walk less and cab it more!”

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Filed under: Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Tom Bloxham MBE, Urban Splash

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1 comments to Partying in the big cities

  1. Andy Spinoza says:
    October 5, 2010 at 7:56 pm

    I agree Tom that it’s a thoroughly positive trend. Not only does it give us champions of regional cities a chance to introduce decision makers a real taste of a different city from the capital, the media figures also get a chance to have their preconceptions challenged, often with positIve results in the press.

    We must guard against tokenism, though, and continue to press the case for the northern cities in the seeming vacuum - as you say - of a coherent policy to support the core cities through the inevitable hard times ahead.

Is there room for rent?

August 17th, 2010 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Richard Oakes

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A new report was published yesterday by the Chartered Institute of Housing, claiming that the ‘golden age’ of home ownership is over and that we now need to focus more on rental options in the UK.

Whenever the issue of renting comes up, its always interesting to look at our friends in Europe and the sociological perceptions towards renting there. In France and Germany – where just 45% of homes are actually owner occupied – renting is commonplace. It’s also a regular trend across the pond in big American cities.

Now, a large proportion of our society are faced with barriers to entry, meaning that renting is having to be considered as a serious option within the UK. Primarily, the Institute of Housing’s report calls for the ‘improvement of rented homes to meet changing trends’, be they changing demographics of rental tenants or their lifestyles.

I see this as a positive. I don’t understand why there remains a ‘stigma’ to renting a home beyond your student or early professional years. There are great opportunities available to people who can rent and as more and more developers become landlords tenants will gain more added security which the report suggests is currently lacking. At Urban Splash for example we’ve been accredited by the Homes and Communities Agency as a landlord of affordable homes.

The report also calls for a more diverse rental market with varied price points for people in differing circumstances. This diversity of choice is becoming more evident as developers themselves offer more of a rental choice; at Urban Splash for example we now retain a large proportion of our rental stock meaning that there is a choice to rent or buy at homes around the country. Our rental portfolio has increased to more than 400 homes this year.

As developers themselves become higher volume landlords it brings more positives to the market. Primarily, the customer can develop a direct relationship with the housebuilder, resulting in less middlemen, more hands on management and improved customer care which may well resort in customers ultimately purchasing their homes as mortgage availability improves.

The report also calls for the Government and developers to provide more for the ‘inbetweens’, a segment of society they identify as having incomes between £12,000 and £25,000 whose income puts them outside of the social housing bracket but often in near impossible positions in trying to secure a mortgage. This is where Homes and Communities backed products come into play. Rent to HomeBuy, for example is where customers can rent at 80% market rent whilst they save up to buy between 25% and 75% of their home for upto five years. This is available nationally at homes in Manchester and Plymouth. There’s also HomeBuy Direct (which is finishing in September) which is allows customers to get straight onto the property ladder through obtaining a mortgage for just 70% of their home with the remaining 30% obtained through an interest free equity loan. They give customers the option to either ‘try before they buy’, renting their home at a reduced rate for up to five years, or go into shared home ownership with less financial burden.

Overall I think this report’s done wonders to help catapult the issue of home ownership back into the public eye. I now think its the responsibility of developers and the Government to maintain these efforts and broaden the offering nationally; be that in terms of price, tenure, size and location.

Filed under: Leeds, Saxton, Urban Splash - tags:

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Cold beers, cheese and celebrity chefs – a day in the life of Fort Dunlop!

July 20th, 2010 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Nick Batt

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I attended the ‘Taste of Birmingham’ event on the Fort Dunlop roof last week. It was a ‘pre’ event celebrating the launch of the actual festival which will take place across Birmingham this week.

More than 100 of our tenants came along (helped by the sunshine!) to taste lots of lovely locally produced products – including cheese and beers.

A celebrity chef, Alan Coxon, was on hand to give us more information about what we were eating, so it turned into a really informative afternoon.

You might have seen my colleague Emily’s earlier blog about another rooftop event at the Fort and its fair to say we are becoming quite partial to them (especially in these Summer months). It’s the largest ‘living’ green roof in the country and is vast in size with lots of permanent furniture and structures in place for parties.

Drop me a line if you’re interested in hosting an event up there. Or for any other details about the Fort.

Filed under: Birmingham, Fort Dunlop, Urban Splash

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Why Manningham’s Mills better…

July 5th, 2010 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Tom Bloxham MBE

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Before

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After

Reading the Guardian’s recent report on the regeneration of Manningham and English Heritage’s new book on the town prompted me to think back.

I first visited Lister Mills in the late 1990s and was instantly struck by the grandeur of the buildings. Samuel Lister still has more patents than any other Englishman - perhaps the Bill Gates of his day. Yet moving around the derelict, empty, forgotten, mills (which had long since gone bankrupt) was a depressing experience.

To cheer me up I went a couple of miles down the road to Saltaire and saw Jonathan Silver’s Salts Mill which he had turned into a thriving shopping emporium with restaurants, bookshops, jewelers, the Hockney Gallery and lots of other businesses.

This made me determined to do something with Lister Mills. Many people had looked at redeveloping the Mill; ideas such as a Victoria and Albert North Museum and a factory outlet village had been talked about, but no one had been able to deliver. Delivery became harder with the unrest and riots in 2001 but through persistence and determination we were able to come up with funding packages and partnerships with Yorkshire Forward and Bradford Council, both of which helped us start work on the restoration of the first corner of the first building Silk Warehouse in 2003.

Seven years later the work is by no means finished and there’s still buildings to restore but we have created a lot. 255 apartments, the Manningham Mills Community Centre, Mind the Gap – a theatre for actors with learning disabilities – and a department of Bowling College Bradford which will open in September.

All this has helped with the beginnings of a real community. Much else has gone on in Manningham and it has gone through a lot, transforming from a prosperous town in Victorian times to somewhere that declined in the 1990s and is again fast becoming a diverse, successful place.

Urban Splash is proud to have played its part and we’re keen to do more.


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Filed under: Bradford, Lister Mills, Tom Bloxham MBE, Urban Splash - tags: , , , , , ,

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Homebuy Direct open evening Thursday 1st July, prices from £69,695

June 29th, 2010 [ No comments ] [ Add comment ]
by Nicola Wallis

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We are hosting an open evening this Thursday at Saxton in Leeds so that people can come and learn more about HomeBuy Direct.

The scheme allows customers to purchase their own home from as little as £69,695 and is backed by the Homes and Communities Agency. It helps customers to purchase up to 70% of their home with the remaining amount coming from an interest free loan from the HCA and Urban Splash. Our team, as well as our dedicated mortgage advisor will be on hand to give you advice about the scheme and what mortgage products are available to you. You could move into your new home this Summer!

Saxton itself boasts a mix of stunning one and two bedroom apartments all benefiting from fantastic specifications including full height glazing and visitors will be able to see this for themselves at our new eighth floor show apartment which will be ready to view on the evening. Outside the building there will be acres of green space with private residents’ garden and the opportunity for any greenfingered residents to have their own allotment. It’s located just a stone’s throw from the City Centre and in easy reach of the Calls and the City’s train station.

The doors will be open from 5pm through to 8pm and we really hope to see you there!


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Filed under: Leeds, Saxton, Urban Splash - tags: ,

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