The EG Interview: Inside Bradford Estates

Alexander Newport always knew he’d one day become the custodian of 12,000 acres of Shropshire land. That was always going to be his destiny. The Earls of Bradford have called Weston-under-Lizard home since the Norman conquest in 1066, but Newport – who will become the 8th Earl of Bradford after his father – wants the estate to be more than just a home. He wants it to be a real asset, not just for the family, but for the people of Shropshire too. To ensure he is more than just the ancestral owner of the estate, Newport set about a career in traditional real estate. After studying classics at King’s College, he decided it was time to get some real-life experience. This began with work experience at some of the other landed estates around Shropshire and in the property department of Scottish Coal. The experience sparked enough of an interest to undertake a master’s in commercial real estate at the University of Reading and a 16-year career in agency and investment, first as a graduate surveyor at DTZ (now part of Cushman & Wakefield), then at Covent Garden-based investment and asset management specialist Pelham Associates. He then became a partner at Quadrant Estates, bringing KKR to Europe, acquiring and redeveloping the 235,000 sq ft Moor Place with BlackRock and CarVal, and the 90,000 sq ft 100 Cheapside, again with CarVal. “I was involved in the genesis and exit of the deals mostly,” says Newport. “I would do acquisition, underwriting, financing, putting the structures together with the investors and then selling the corporate vehicles on the way out as well.” That was the experience Newport knew he needed if he was to be able to execute his plan for Bradford Estate – if he was to become more than just the custodian of the land he was about to be gifted. “My learning and apprenticeship working in London and working with some of the top investors in the world, the top lawyers and top accountants showed me what best-in-class practice was and I could bring that back home,” says Newport. And that is exactly what he is trying to do. Countryside dynamism Newport’s ambition is to transform Bradford Estate into a modern-day property company. But with a difference. He’s keen to professionalise the running of the estate, to bring management of all parts of it back in-house but, in the numerous conversations he is having with the local community and the three authorities the estate crosses – Shropshire Council, South Staffordshire District Council, Stafford Borough Council, keen too to ensure that they understand the estate isn’t any old modern-day property company. It’s a long-term investor, a long-term owner with the goal of enhancing the local environment, not setting precedents for other developers. It’s a fine line to walk. Custodian of the Great British countryside and developer of space and places to live, work and play. Newport thinks he has the answer though: think big and think long. He has set out a 100-year plan for the estate. A century-long plan that will turn 12,000 acres of farm, woodland and developable land into a modern-day property company. [caption id="attachment_1146105" align="aligncenter" width="847"] Weston would be the country’s first fully sustainable, net zero settlement[/caption] And the journey has already begun. Since coming back from London to run the estate in 2019, Newport has started bringing all management back in-house from land management, to construction and finance. Even planning is back in-house too, with Newport’s wife Eliza looking after that. She earned her real estate stripes at WeWork and Roundhill Capital. “We’ve managed to get a lot done in the last two years,” he says. “I’ve injected the pace of doing things that I’m used to from London into the business. We’re moving ahead at a dynamic pace. I want to debunk that theory of taking a foot off the gas in the country. The country needs some dynamism. It’s not the first impression you might have about rural life, but there’s lots of interesting and innovative stuff happening here.” Newport also set about bringing some debt onto the estate for the first time, utilising the vast portfolio that is the estate to secure long-term financing so he could start investing back into the estate and doing that “innovate stuff” he talks about. That funding enabled the business to acquire one of its first commercial portfolios, a collection of 1980s-build industrial assets. All bought at yields of around 7-8%, now likely to be sitting at 5-6% at least. It is also enabling the estate to green its holdings, bringing the 150 homes on the estate in line with future EPC requirements and installing air-source heat pumps where possible, switching to regenerative farming, planting 350 acres of new woodland, pushing forward plans to deliver the country’s first net zero settlement and to be an estate that has businesses not just in farming and industrial, but in housebuilding too. It’s starting to sound like a modern-day property company, isn’t it? Most ambitious within Newport’s 100-year plan is his dream of putting Shropshire on the map as the first place in the country to deliver a fully sustainable, net zero settlement. Plans to create Weston (named after the family’s ancestral home), a circa 2,500-home settlement by junction 3 of the M54, have been in the making for around five years. They’ve not yet had the greatest support from the local authorities, but Newport continues to tweak and adapt, adamant that this development will be net positive for the local environment and community. West Midlands mayor Andy Street has shown some interest in the scheme and Newport says he’s had positive conversations with Wolverhampton university and other educational facilities about creating a potential university quarter at the planned 4m sq ft Midlands Tech Park that forms part of the scheme. He wants to create a “nexus between employers and educators to drive upskilling in our region” with the park becoming a leader in the industries of tomorrow and home to businesses focused on MMC, battery technologies, agritech and other renewable technologies. There’s potential, too, says Newport, for lab space for the booming life sciences sector. Sustainability is a big focus for Newport and Bradford Estate. The business is focusing on making its farming division net zero by 2030 and is incorporating holistic, regenerative practices across the estate’s 4,000 acres of farmland. It has started using electric vehicles and is investigating the potential of hydrogen-powered machinery. And, where possible, solar is being added across the estate. Circular economy drive “I’d like to see us going net zero as soon as possible – certainly the farming,” says Newport. “Being a circular economy, too, repurposing old agricultural buildings into local employment, leisure and other uses, is important.” Across the estate, Newport is turning old buildings into new projects. Plans have recently gone in to transform Meashill Farm into a 12-bedroom wedding and events venue, and proposals for more leisure facilities, woodland lodges and glamping sites all form part of the 100-year plan. Newport is also keen to increase the estate’s industrial portfolio from the circa 240,000 sq ft it has on site today to close to 1m sq ft. He has plans to convert around 500,000 sq ft of agricultural buildings to light industrial use. For Newport, it is about creating a community within the estate, building income streams for local people and re-investing them. “It’s really important to support local employment and local business and we intend to do that by converting more buildings into local workspaces,” says Newport. “We very much want to have a local business ecosystem. We tend to use as many of our occupiers as possible for their services so we can internalise some of the expenditure and keep that business ecosystem going.” That circular economy forms much of the basis of Newport’s big ambitions for the estate. He has hopes of becoming a housebuilder in the future and has already identified 75 plots with potential. But Newport doesn’t want to be any old housebuilder and, with an estate as vast and varied as the Bradford Estate, he doesn’t have to be. He says the firm is looking at growing hemp on the land so that it can develop hempcrete, a biocompsite being developed to help replace less sustainable forms of concrete, and introducing a sheep business so it can use wool for insulation. They are ambitious, well-intentioned plans but, regardless of whether you are a large landowner in the country or a corporate landlord in a city, there remains a major hurdle. “In order to do all those great things, I need to get planning,” says Newport. “I need planning to create economic growth. I’m really trying to communicate with the three local authorities we have here and get over to them that we are looking at this whole estate plan approach and that we’re not trying to create a precedent for other developers to use against them. But for us to do all these good things for the local community, we need to have planning.” He adds: “We intend to be here for a long time. We need to work with the local community because we are a stakeholder alongside them. We want to reassure them that we’re trying to do as much as we can to mitigate things, but also to understand that what they see out of their window is actually an economic asset that needs to be used to create growth.” And that, for Newport, is what he hopes will be his legacy. He wants to be more than just a custodian of the land of which he says he has the “great privilege” of taking ownership. He wants it to give back to the community, to provide jobs and places to live and play and to turn his landed estate into a modern, successful property company. To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews Photos: Bradford Estates