Appointment will help Kingswood Homes double output

Little Hoole-based Kingswood Homes has appointed senior planner Kieran Blaydes as part of its plans to increase its annual output from 100 to 200 homes.

Kieran will play a key role in progressing new developments through the planning process.

He studied master planning/urban, community and regional planning. He graduated from Newcastle University with a 2:1 in May 2019 and went onto work for Barton Wilmore as a graduate planner before joining Hive Land and Planning, achieving chartered status in September 2020.

He chaired a young planners conference in 2019 attended by 400 of his peers. Currently junior vice chair of the Royal Town Planning Institute North West, Kieran is set to take over as chair.

His previous role as a planning consultant to housebuilders, preparing planning and submitting planning applications, helped to get land allocated for development and applying for government funding for sites that otherwise wouldn’t be viable.

Kieran said: "The main attraction of moving in-house to work directly for Kingswood was that it’s a more hands-on role and I’ll be able to take a scheme from promoting it to the planners to get planning permission and then watch it being built and monitoring the progress and how that triggers various legal agreements. I enjoy being part of the whole project process and am already starting to understand more of the technical details of the sites. It’s really exciting and interesting.

"Working for Kingswood as a SME housebuilder rather than a big PLC you can have much more of a voice and can influence the direction of a project more as there’s more flexibility.”

Paul Jones, managing director of Kingswood Homes, said: “As the business grows it’s imperative that we strengthen our team by recutting people like Kieran with the skills, passion and enthusiasm required to help us move forward. Kieran is a welcome addition to the team and will be key to helping our schemes progress through the planning process enabling us to deliver much-needed high quality homes.”

Kingswood Homes, headquartered at Little Hoole, near Preston, is currently building at Green Hills in Feniscowles and The Hawthorns in Elswick, Lancashire, and at The Market Quarter in Hatherleigh, Devon. The company also has plans for 79 new homes in the Lancashire village of Hoddlesden.

• For further Lancashire business news, advice and analysis subscribe to Lancashire Business View or join the LBV Hub from just £2.50 per month. Click here to subscribe now.