Our co-founder and, if we’re honest, a bit of a fixer
Stuart set up Hive with Mark Vaughan after decades working across the private and public sector. From his early days as a local authority planner, he now spends his time in much more strategic and delivery focused conversations to help get projects moving.
Curious about what keeps Stuart busy?
Take five minutes and read on.
What do you love most about your job?
I’m passionate about housing growth and regeneration and, specifically, delivery. There’s always a route to delivery and I love carving out that route.
Delivery is far more than a planning permission. Of course it’s important to have a vision, be sustainable, and achieve quality placemaking, but in the back my mind I’m always asking what do we need to do to get something built.
If you imagine that an architect’s illustrative masterplan is at one end of the spectrum, then I’m working towards the other. Less conceptual visioning. More specific delivery strategies and conversations that get things moving.
There are so many elements that need to line up, and I love being able to discern and connect the dots to pave a route through to delivery.
What was your route to Hive?
I started out my career as probably the most technical sort of planner you could possibly be, working in local government, Regional Development Agency, planning consultancy and Milton Keynes Partnership
Then I spent the best part of 10 years in Homes England’s north west team and my role became less technical and more strategic in scope, focused on de-risking sites and taking them to market – not dissimilar from a developer’s key objective.
What did your time at Homes England teach you?
It gave me a commercial understanding of the whole development lifecycle, and what hurdles need to be jumped to turn plans into thriving places, whether it’s a site for 250 or 2,500 homes. Understanding the way government works, whilst sometimes baffling, was also really important to delivery.
A highlight for me was leading the Garden Villages Programme in the NW, as well as driving central government investment into the region. I also loved securing planning consent for and delivering sites near to where I grew up in Lancashire – sites which I wrote about in my university dissertation!
How does that experience help you in your role at Hive?
I understand what’s required to deliver a project, and being able to bring the right partners together to make it happen. I’d say that that really does stem from my time at Homes England. I can understand strategically what needs to be done, and when, and ensure a proposal has a credible route to delivery. And I established strong professional relationships with people who still work at HE.
These days I’m typically called upon to pull together the right partners and get the right conversations happening, whether that’s to raise the profile of a place so it’s on Homes England’s or Combined Authorities radar, or to help local stakeholders talk coherently in one voice, so they can present a compelling funding bid.
What’s it like working closely with local authorities?
Whatever structural problems the country as a whole is facing, it’s in the place you live where you manifestly see and experience the impact of these issues. Local authority officers are rooted in their place and rooting for it. I love working with them.
They’ve battled with a serious lack of national funding for decades but kept their nerve. Over recent years we have seen signs of an improved funding position, and we can and do help local authorities position and secure much needed funding to bolster resources and unlock projects.
Tell us more about your involvement in Preston
Preston’s a two-tier local authority area, which makes it inherently harder to make things happen. I helped establish the Preston Regeneration Board, pulling together the relevant stakeholders: the city and county councils, the university, and Preston Partnership. I helped the board identify what needed to change in order to secure government backing, building on a credible delivery plan. I was also pivotal to the City Living Strategy, an award winning project which has completely changed the residential offer.
Where’s next in your sights?
I’m part of the Ashton Mayoral Development Zone which, excitingly, is soon to morph into a development corporation, effectively creating a new entity with decision making powers.
Hive have been doing some really exciting regeneration work in Skelmersdale, where again the trick has been to promote the positives of the place, and present a credible plan to government.
And more recently we’ve been invited to advise the Barrow Delivery Board on how to create a step change in their housing delivery rates to accommodate the influx of people associated with the Port of Barrow’s nuclear submarine-building programme. We’re advising them on every stage of the lifecycle of development needed to get houses built and lived in.
Sounds like you’re a bit of a fixer, then
Perhaps that’s it in a nutshell. I bring people together, help them see what their barriers to delivery are, lay out the best way forward is, and help those with the purse strings to buy into the vision! Working with good developers is, of course, a critical part of our offer.
We find a lot of joy working in places which might have been ignored over recent years, where they have, historically, struggled to get necessary investment to make things happen. We help them be seen, create a buzz about their town and identify their route to delivery.
That’s something I’m really proud to be spending my time doing.
What’s next, what are you excited about?
For years the country has experienced major under delivery in housing but now, we’re seeing that turn around in some places. From promises on new towns, to the establishment of the National Housing Delivery Fund and National Housing Bank, we’re starting to see a shift in mentality within central government. The opportunities to access funding is improving, and so are the opportunities to deliver on the ground.
This change hasn’t come from nowhere, though. It’s been a gradual shift, with various smaller scale funding programmes acting as catalysts for the next thing, like a springboard for a bigger vision. Never dismiss new funding programmes, even if they are small scale, as they can often be the catalyst to lead to something bigger.
We’re in it for the long game, making the most of opportunities when they arise, knuckling down and working with what’s possible. Hard work and commitment pays off – from both sides of the table. Now we’re seeing places such as Ashton, Preston, Skelmersdale and Barrow seize this opportunity and run with it, and I’m pleased as punch to be part of it.
