Real Estate

Duke of Westminster’s property group plans 30,000 homes


The property company that owns swaths of central London’s wealthiest areas has unveiled plans to expand into large-scale residential development.

The Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Group said on Wednesday that it wants to create a portfolio of 30,000 homes over the next five years, more than three times its current residential pipeline.

Grosvenor is best known as the major property owner in Belgravia and Mayfair and for big retail developments such as Liverpool One.

But in recent years, it has taken a growing interest in residential property outside central London. Last year, it said it would invest £500m in a “build-to-rent” development in Bermondsey, in south-east London.

Grosvenor said on Wednesday that under its new plans, it will aim to work as “master developer”, orchestrating the planning, design and build of large housing schemes, typically of between 2,000 and 5,000 homes, along with associated infrastructure.

Alex Robinson, director of development at Grosvenor’s strategic land business, said: “We can deliver schools, public spaces and amenities to create places you would want to go and live in. It could be on the scale of a town, or a series of villages, not just a housing development.”

Grosvenor would identify the development sites on greenfield or brownfield land, shepherd them through the design and planning process, and then pass individual parts of them on to housebuilders. The land would not necessarily be owned by Grosvenor, although that could be the case.

Mr Robinson sees two schemes already under way in England as the model that Grosvenor will follow.

In Cambridgeshire, the company is developing a 1,200 home site at Trumpington Meadows alongside housebuilder Barratt and the Universities Superannuation Scheme — a pension fund for UK academics. In Oxfordshire, it is developing 900 homes at Barton Park in partnership with Oxford City Council and housebuilders Hill and Redrow.

Mr Robinson said that Grosvenor’s long time horizons should help it to win projects. “We can be on site for 15 to 20 years-plus, and we’re happy to take our profit towards the end of the period and invest up front in schools, parks and other infrastructure so it looks good before anyone moves in.”

The company is targeting sites in south-east England. “We are looking at locations where we see housing being in need, often around transport interchanges or employment hubs.”

Grosvenor said that a government report on housebuilding published in June backs the idea of splitting large developments into smaller ones that can be developed by different housebuilders. That could help big sites to be developed more quickly after planning permission has been granted.



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