PRD and project partners We Made That worked with Thanet District Council and the Margate Town Deal Board to develop a Town Investment Plan underpinned by extensive community engagement and a widespread desire to transform Margate into a town with a strong year-round economy.

The TIP charts a 10-year course of improvements for Margate, focusing on scaling Margate’s creative economy and skills through a new Creative Land Trust; tackling deep health inequalities by providing more wellbeing amenities linked to Margate’s coast; improving public realm and connectivity; and making Margate’s nationally-renowned heritage assets more sustainable and inclusive. It is underpinned by PRD’s extensive socioeconomic baseline to ensure interventions are targeted in areas that need them most.

PRD is currently helping Thanet District Council to lay the groundwork for individual TIP project business cases, which will ensure that Margate’s £22.2m of funding is used to achieve maximum benefit for the town’s residents and workers.

The GLA’s high streets data service brings together dynamic datasets to build a detailed picture of activity across the city’s 600+ high streets. It is intended to help people understand how activity on high streets is changing, especially in light of Covid-19 and ongoing recovery. PRD initially advised the GLA on relevant data to consider for the service and developed an outline structure for a London-wide, multi-stakeholder Data Partnership which will help guide the new data service.

The GLA commissioned PRD for ongoing work with the data service and partnership, which involves bespoke data analysis and reporting, refining the partnership structure, training support, and promoting the data service.

PRD supported Guy’s & St Thomas’ (GSTT) on their 15-year, £4bn regeneration of its Westminster Bridge and London Bridge campuses. Pre-Covid, PRD worked alongside GSTT in their offices to provide on-demand advice on all property-related matters.

Recent work has included developing proposals for partnerships with key stakeholders and landowners; providing evidence and information to generate support from the governance teams; and identifying and working up proposals for assets that will allow assist with decanting in the short term and further capitalise on regeneration uplift in the long term.

PRD has developed a range of viability models to guide the work programme. We have also helped soft-market test ideas with developers, investors and occupiers, particularly in the MedTech and life sciences sectors, and have managed external consultants on behalf of GSTT to ensure that they receive the best advice possible.

Liverpool City Region, comprising six Liverpool-area local authorities, commissioned PRD to establish a portfolio of sites that would benefit from Homes England funding for infill and small-scale residential development.

The Liverpool region has some of the most challenging viability constraints in the country, making development at this scale difficult. PRD identified additional obstacles, such as remediation and demolition costs, fragmented ownership, conflicting landowner ambitions, and costs of utilities/services. We consulted individual local authorities, small developers, landowners, and registered providers to understand their own barriers to delivery, the most effective ways for funding to unlock development, and ideal site types.

From this, we developed scoring criteria to help whittle down a longlist of 650 sites into a shortlist of 50 best sites that can be delivered in the shortest amount of time and with minimal intervention. We also built a ‘roadmap’ of next steps for LCR and Homes England to begin rolling out a programme of procurement and funding for the first wave of sites.

The London Borough of Lambeth sought to establish a council-owned housing company to reach ambitious targets for building new social rented housing. PRD initially advised on organisational structuring, delivery strategy and programme management options; undertook extensive engagement and education with councillors, officers, and other stakeholders; liaised with tax, accounting, and legal advisors to test the robustness of the proposed structure against Homes for Lambeth’s (HfL) development goals; helped establish a company Board; and supported the Board to consider messaging and opportunities to meet wider council objectives.

Since Cabinet approved PRD’s recommendation to establish HfL as a wholly-owned company with a group structure and the detailed governance proposals, we have continued to support HfL at the Board, executive and wider stakeholder levels. With partners , PRD has carried out business and resource planning, co-ordinated legal advice on loans and financing, prepared documents for the Regulator of Social Housing, and developed agreements between the council and HfL.

PRD has an ongoing relationship with LB Newham across several workstreams. For example, we developed a comprehensive evidence base for the council’s inclusive economy strategy, which is formed around community wealth building principles. Community wealth building is an economic development approach that redirects wealth and the gains of economic growth back to local neighbourhoods and people.

In response to Covid-19, throughout which Newham’s residents were among the hardest-hit in the country, the council commissioned PRD to expand the strategy to a wider recovery and reorientation plan, which has formed the basis of the borough’s new Corporate Plan.

We have also undertaken research on the impacts of Covid-19 throughout Newham, supported development of a new affordable workspace programme, delivered data training for officers, established a measurement framework for the Corporate Plan and other strategies, and provided socioeconomic data to support masterplanning in areas including Stratford, Canning Town, and Custom House.

Working alongside and Atkins, Oxford City Council, Oxford County Council, Network Rail, and the Oxfordshire LEP, PRD is providing strategic property development, value capture, viability and delivery advice to inform and guide the updated masterplan for this globally important city gateway.

Drawing on our experience of harnessing infrastructure investment to drive wider benefits, our economic work in Oxford and our strong background in formulating delivery options and viability assessments, we are establishing a business case for adjacent station redevelopment and bringing delivery certainty to the project.

Our ongoing partnership with Redo is a platform to help local authorities create asset value strategies by using redundant buildings for social good, particularly to support co-working, start-up and scale-up businesses, and local enterprise.

Redo is the consulting arm of 3space, an affordable/flexible workspace provider. Their model for every space let at an affordable rate, another is given at peppercorn rent, while PRD brings expertise on innovative asset strategies and monitoring success once a space is under operation.

Together, we have delivered and monitored ongoing impact of projects in Brixton, Lancaster, Kensal, and Old Oak & Park Royal.