Lockdown diaries: Urban Splash’s Tom Bloxham

Tom Bloxham MBE is chairman and co-founder of regeneration company Urban Splash. Here, he shares his day, from treading the backstreets of Manchester in lockdown, to virtually exploring the Far East with colleagues in Japan. For the first three months of lockdown, I was holding the fort at our head office. I live very close to our Urban Splash office in Castlefield, Manchester, so it has been good for me to get out of the house and safely base myself in the office (funnily enough, the Mrs says it’s been good for her too). During this time though, most of my Urban Splash colleagues have worked at home, meaning I’ve often been the only person in the office. It took me back to the early nineties when Jonathan Falkingham and I first set the business up. I’ve spent my days signing for deliveries, meeting the postman – and, thankfully, getting loads of stuff done. At the moment we have typically between five and 10 colleagues coming into the office each day, and most people are still working from home. With so many people at home, we are using the period to upgrade and refurb our offices. We will reopen properly in September, but facilitate much more homeworking. Covid has changed the way we work forever. I’m lucky enough to start my working day with a blank piece of paper on my desk every day – never sure what I’m going to deal with. But I still have a good schedule of Zoom and Teams calls to keep some structure. (My Zoom background is me in front of Port Loop in Birmingham, from my office in Manchester. I’ve even used it on a call with Number 10!) Today, my first call is with our partner Sekisui House, Japan’s largest housebuilder. I dial in at 8am UK time, meaning it was 4pm for my colleagues in Japan. The timing works well for all of us. We formed our partnership with Sekisui House and Homes England in summer 2019, and we’re really starting to see the relationship beginning to bed down. On today’s call, we talk through the business plan for the next three years, as well as some exciting new projects on the horizon – including Northstowe in Cambridgeshire, which we’ll be launching to the market next month. It’s always great meeting our colleagues in Japan, on the ground and online. You’ll not be surprised to hear that my Japanese isn’t all that great, so we have to involve translators, which can sometimes make it hard to get conversations flowing – but in spite of that there’s always a real synergy between our values and what we want to do to the UK housing sector. My next virtual meeting is with our team of in-house marketeers and designers, talking about “Live Well by Design” – a new proposition for our House by Urban Splash brand. Recently, we’ve been thinking a lot about the ethos of our business. The phrase “Live Well by Design” encapsulates it and we’ve been creating a new film on what that means. This is one of many films, we’ve made during lockdown, helping people see more of our business and neighbourhoods from their own homes. It has been particularly apt in recent times, when people are re-evaluating the spaces in which they live. Lockdown has shown us how important homes like ours are – surrounded by green spaces with big space standards. From my (lonely!) office window I’ve been looking out to see all of these tall buildings going up in Manchester – many funded through PRS schemes. For a long time now I’ve been thinking about the ubiquitous nature of them; big buildings, each comprising several hundred flats, all of which are usually small and single aspect – most of them going for the top 10% of rental prices. I thought we could do something better – focusing not on amenity but on great homes; we wanted to create something as appealing to renters as they would be to buyers. My next meeting of the day focuses on this, with a call to discuss our Urban Splash UK Residential Fund. We set the fund up in 2019 with friends and family, raising an initial £20m seed funding, generating a 12% return in the first year. Now, we’re busy trying to raise £100m from institutional investors. Today’s Zoom was interesting for many reasons – not least because I was meeting with a local authority pension fund for the first time over a digital platform; it’s so much easier to get across the quality of our homes on site visits when people can touch and feel what’s on offer – but for now, Zoom is the next best thing. When I’m not manning our Urban Splash office, I also chair the Manchester International Festival. This is a huge, biannual cultural event for the city. My final Zoom appointment of the day is with my MIF colleagues, with an update on the progress of our new, OMA-designed factory building, which will complete next year. On these Zoom calls I realise how lucky I am, reflecting on others in the pandemic who have not survived Covid-19 and people living in lockdown. I think about friends and colleagues struggling with homeschooling and people living in accommodation that can’t work in the way we’re all demanding right now. It makes me all the more passionate about creating more great homes with outdoor spaces. I know I am fortunate, being able to escape to the office and how lucky and far-sighted we have been to design so many of our homes with such generous green spaces that have really come into their own in these times. It means that, for now at least, house sales are flying. In the afternoon, I take a much-needed break from the office and head out for a walk along Manchester’s canals, back streets and rivers. I am delighted to have some company today and am joined (from a suitable social distance of course) by a young ambitious colleague. I listen to their ideas and aspirations, sharing with them some of the stories of sites we’ve developed. I show them some of the back streets of Manchester, some of which they’ve never seen and remember how we bought and sold a number of sites across the city. It is a much welcome bit of fresh air. I make one final trip back to the office at 5pm (couldn’t miss the postman), before leaving at 6.30pm. After a long, but exciting day, I’m happy to head home for a gin and slim – my new favourite drink of the lockdown. To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette