Top 50 clients: How they did

How housing associations did

• (ranking: 3) Places for People
• (24) Glasgow Housing Association
• Catalyst Housing Group
• Circle Anglia
• Genesis Housing Group
• London & Quadrant Group
• Metropolitan Housing Trust
• Plus Housing Group
• Thames Valley Housing Association

Although only two housing associations made the top 25, there were a total of nine listed among the top 50 clients overall. Of these, six operate principally in London and the South-east, with only Places for People, GHA and Plus Housing Group based elsewhere. This apparent southern bias makes some sense as the lion’s share of the Housing Corporation’s £3.9bn, two-year development programme – £2.4bn and 36,650 homes – goes to London and the South-east. It is also the case that associations in the region – particularly in London – are able to take advantage of higher land values than are found elsewhere in the UK. As a result organisations such as Circle Anglia – which plans to build 40% of its 2000 annual new homes without government grant by 2009 – are creating new business models that allow the social and affordable housing they build to be cross-subsidised by increasing numbers of homes for sale on the open market. There are a number of mergers that have only recently taken place or that are planned, such as Hyde Group and Metropolitan HT, which could create larger potential regeneration clients that will be likely to push for places higher up next year’s rankings.

How local authorities did

• (ranking: 1) Manchester council
• (2) Glasgow council
• (4) Sheffield council
• (6) London Borough of Newham
• (16) Coventry council
• (17) Cardiff council
• (19) Newcastle council
• London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• London Borough of Lewisham
• London Borough of Southwark
• Mansfield council

You may be surprised by the identities of some of the local authorities on the list and some that have not made it. Liverpool council, for instance, which is now putting the finishing touches to its preparations as 2008 European Capital of Culture, is absent, as are Bristol, Leeds and Brighton. However, perhaps slightly unexpectedly, Glasgow and Sheffield councils ran Manchester close for the top spot. The judges fiercely debated the relative merits of Sheffield’s efforts to “drag itself up from next to nothing” with few resources and Glasgow’s impressive array of projects along the River Clyde. There were also four London boroughs in the 11 councils listed in the top 50 as well as some smaller places noted for significant projects such as Mansfield council’s.

How delivery agencies did

• (ranking: 11) English Partnerships
• (14) Liverpool Vision
• (18) New East Manchester URC
• (23) Oldham/Rochdale Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder
• Hull City Build
• London Development Agency
• RegenCo URC
• Yorkshire Forward

Appropriately, national regeneration agency English Partnerships topped the list of delivery agencies but its merger partner, the Housing Corporation did not make it into the top 50, perhaps because it is perceived primarily as a regulatory body.

Urban regeneration companies (URCs) emerged as most popular delivery agency with four making it onto our list: Liverpool Vision, New East Manchester, Hull City Build and the Midlands’ RegenCo.

In addition to the URCs, our top 50 contained one housing market renewal pathfinder (Oldham/Rochdale), one regional development agency in Yorkshire Forward, and London mayor Ken Livingstone’s delivery body. There was a definite northern bias to the delivery agencies listed, and the London Development Agency was the sole representative from the south of England, the notoriously large number of agencies operating in the Thames Gateway being conspicuous by their absence.

How the developers did

• (ranking: 5) Argent
• (9) English Cities Fund
• Urban Splash
• (20) St Modwen
• (21) Quintain
• Chelsfield Places/Sir Stuart Lipton
• Development Securities
• Grainger
• Hammerson
• Igloo
• In Partnership
• Isis Waterside Regeneration
• Land Securities
• Lend Lease

Fourteen developers featured in our top 50 and they are a very mixed bag, some being private sector animals taking on commercial-led development in the name of urban regeneration, while others span the public-private divide as investor developers with a remit to regenerate areas of deprivation. The highest ranking developer is Argent, which came fifth in the overall listing, a recognition of its persistence in bringing London’s King’s Cross Central site through a lengthy planning process.

Following in its wake are investor developer English Cities Fund, those style-setters of the residential development sector Urban Splash, large-scale regenerator of industrial sites and town centres St Modwen and Quintain, the developer behind those London mega-sites, Wembley and Greenwich Peninsula.

How housebuilders did

• (ranking: 7) Bellway
• (10) Barratt
• (12) Berkeley Group
• (13) Crest Nicholson
• (22) Haslam Homes
• (25) George Wimpey

The top of the housebuilder table recognises those companies that were working in residential-led regeneration long before PPG3’s demand for high density, the appetite for city centre living and the investor market all changed the style of residential development. Remember Bellway’s new community on the Victoria Docks site in Hull built through the 1990s or Barratt’s estates regeneration projects in east London? Both were tough to deliver, and are a world away from the glamorous city centre signature-architect designed apartment schemes now signaled as residential-led regeneration.

Half of the top housebuilding names listed here are national, mass market operators, while the remainder are regional. Berkeley Group is recognised for showing the way in mixed use development, while Crest Nicholson is setting its own standard on sustainability. To make the point that our top 50 is not about the biggest, coming in at number five in the housebuilder listing, and number 22 overall, is Haslam Homes, the regional housebuilding arm of the Keepmoat Group.