- Client
- Private landowner
- Sector
- Planning & Development
- Location
- Gloucestershire
- How we helped
- Valuations Development Consultancy Strategic Land Planning Consultancy
James is Chairman of Carter Jonas. Formerly Head of the Planning & Development Division, James advises clients on proposed development projects throughout the south of England with nearly 30 years of experience in residential and mixed use development. This includes site identification, project management of planning and development strategies, valuation and viability appraisals, marketing and sale of development opportunities. He has specific expertise in option, promotion and other development agreements, joint ventures and landowner equalisation agreements. James has been involved in sites ranging from new settlements to city centre regeneration and smaller provincial and rural schemes, and also provides expert witness and independent expert valuation services for dispute resolution.
Carter Jonas acquired around 90 acres of agricultural land in the Green Belt near Gloucester for an institutional client, being part of an ‘area of search’ within the then draft Regional Spatial Strategy.
We then advised our client on methods of taking control of a second similar sized landownership in the area. Consideration was given to various methods including purchase, taking a promotion or option agreement, and entering into a landowner collaboration agreement.
In the end, our professionals negotiated a collaboration agreement with the adjoining landowner before project managing the promotion of the overall site. A draft allocation in the joint core strategy was secured and planning permission for a strategic mixed-use development scheme, including 1,500 new homes, was secured following a ‘call in’ public inquiry. The allocation was subsequently confirmed on the adoption of the joint core strategy.
Carter Jonas have since been project managing the discharge of planning conditions and the delivery of primary infrastructure to open the site for housing. We have now sold three individual residential phases with capacity for 635 new homes to national house builders. During this commission, Carter Jonas have also negotiated and settled ‘overages’ due to former landowners, the surrender of easements affecting the site and resolved many other issues to enable delivery.