First Company In UK To Launch Valuation Tool to Enable Sustainable Development
Keyland Developments Ltd, the property trading arm of Kelda Group and sister company to Yorkshire Water, has unveiled its ambitious plans to help solve Yorkshire’s housing crisis and ensure fast delivery of sustainable communities by introducing a pioneering new housing delivery model. In a first for the UK, the model will be underpinned by a set of environmental, social and financial measures which will be tracked by a unique valuation tool.
After more than twenty years regenerating redundant land for Yorkshire Water, Keyland has spent the last five years extending its services to other landowners through its Planning Promotional Agreement (PPA) initiative, resulting in eight residential developments which will bring forward over 4,000 homes around Yorkshire. With the PPAs now forming half of Keyland’s residential business, the team is focussing its next five-year business plan on growing this side of the business by working with major landowners, including local authorities and other public landowners, to bring forward land to help unlock the housing crisis.
Keyland claims that the current UK model of volume housing delivery doesn’t support sustainable housing delivery or the requirements of individual councils to meet demand for different types of homes. Therefore, the Company set about devising a way to ensure new homes are procured in a way that creates truly sustainable communities, with a key focus on improving energy efficiency and water resilience.
To create a blueprint for sustainable development, Keyland will be the first company in the UK to use a valuation tool to calculate direct, indirect and enabled value delivered from its developments. The tool will be based on the organisation’s ‘Six Capitals’ model and cover natural, social, human, intellectual, manufactured and financial value. Utilising this pioneering tool – created by leading sustainability consultants 3ADAPT, with support from Yorkshire Water and other world leading institutions – Keyland will be able to measure its ‘Total Value’ as a company, addressing its ambitions to deliver exceptional places and enable sustainable living.
To overcome the challenges it sees in the current UK housing delivery model, Keyland will take on a master developer role to work with housebuilders and organisations such as housing associations and later-living housing providers to create a more organic mix of houses, incorporating where appropriate self/custom-build homes. Keyland will pursue more prescriptive planning permissions and incorporate the ‘zoning’ of its sites to ensure that these innovative new communities will be realised.
Peter Garrett, Managing Director of Keyland Developments, said; “This is an incredibly exciting time for Keyland. Having successfully built our PPA business over the last five years, we now have bold ambitions to be the development enabler of choice for both private and public sector landowners both across the County. It’s our view that the existing model of housing delivery simply will not solve the housing crisis in Yorkshire as it does not support council policy, nor will it easily deliver truly sustainable development. By implementing our ‘Six Capitals’ model and evaluating the non-financial values alongside the financial, we can take a more holistic approach and ensure that the total value of a development is explicitly considered. Crucially, our master developer role will address the mix of uses being delivered and incorporate the self/custom-build model which we see as being increasingly important to the future of residential development. In short, we’re looking to change how houses are built and how they are bought.
“The expert team at 3ADAPT have devised the valuation tool, which we understand is the only one in the UK to take into account indirect and enabled as well as direct impacts, making it a truly pioneering and unique resource and one new to the property industry. We are incredibly proud to be at the forefront of residential development innovation and, whilst they may be ambitious, our aspirations to help solve the housing crisis for Yorkshire while facilitating sustainable developments of excellence are wholly deliverable. We are in a privileged position in that we have a strong reputation based on trust and we want to build on that to change the face of housing delivery for the better.”
From now on, Keyland intends to apply the ‘Six Capitals’ approach across the land that it owns, as well as helping inform its work with partners and local councils to fully realise its ambitions of creating truly sustainable neighbourhoods. Keyland owns 1,300 acres of land across the Yorkshire region and is currently involved in promoting over 8,500 homes and 4.5million sq ft of commercial space – the most in its history.
This aligns with Yorkshire Water’s emerging Land Strategy which considers how it can collectively give back and enhance its land in the face of the challenges it faces.
Gaynor Craigie, manager of land and property at Yorkshire Water said: “We are delighted that Keyland Developments Ltd has adopted the Six Capitals approach across the land it owns and promotes. The Six Capitals provides a strong model of sustainability which places an emphasis on living within the limits of the natural environment and developing strategies that grow all capitals. These support Yorkshire Water’s overarching ‘total impact’ philosophy. The aim is to improve natural, social, human, intellectual, manufactured and financial capital and deliver benefits to its customers and stakeholders across Yorkshire.”
Yorkshire Water is one of the largest landowners in the region, through its soon-to-be launched Land Strategy it is a holistic and long-term approach to land management. Gaynor said; “Our new Land Strategy aligns closely with national and regional policies: clean growth; education, skills & work; housing; innovation; transport and trade & investment and support the region to address the climate emergency and improve health & wellbeing. By aligning our respective strategies, Yorkshire Water and Keyland can work together to achieve their goals within Yorkshire, ensuring unified vision for how we can support the North’s potential to be unleashed.”
Keyland is also one of only three Land Brokers, and represents Yorkshire as the only northern partner, on the public sector land delivery framework, Land Solve, created to enable partners to work with public and charitable sectors across the country to maximise the value of surplus land by securing its development potential. The unique, forward-thinking framework is available to the public sector nationwide and aims to unlock value from surplus land to address the significant reduction in public sector budgets.
