Building Brum

On our latest Building Brum podcast we have been joined by Simon Delahunty-Forrest Assistant Director of development planning and development at Birmingham City Council and Verity Barr Director at Cavendish Advocacy, part of the BECG. We caught up with Verity and Simon to discuss the future of Birmingham and what the Future City Plan means for the City and look at what it also means to developers and investors who are looking to relocate and establish themselves in the UK’s second city following its recent global success at hosting the Commonwealth Games.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital,  Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 1,500,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

About Simon Delahunty-Forrest Assistant Director of Development Planning and Development at Birmingham City Council:
A 21st Century Public Servant, and Architect possessing strong, robust, professional and senior managerial leadership experience, delivering high quality outcomes for the citizens of Birmingham.

Currently Acting Assistant Director for Development with responsibility for Planning Management, Enforcement, Planning Development, Development Policy, Enterprise Zone and City Design.

Simon's substantive role as the Head of City Centre and Design within the Planning and Development service area for Birmingham City Council is strategic in promoting and delivering development that will help make Birmingham a place where people increasingly want to live, work, visit and invest contributing significantly to economic prosperity, job creation and to better quality of life, including improved social cohesion, equality and health.

About Verity Barr Director Cavendish Advocacy:
Verity is a director at Cavendish Advocacy, part of the BECG Group and leads the PR team.  She has 20 years’ experience developing and delivering integrated strategic and creative communications campaigns that directly meet business objectives and deliver measurable results. 

A built environment specialist, she has worked across both the private and public sectors with organisations in the property, energy, infrastructure and construction industries, providing strategic counsel as well as devising and managing the delivery of creative marcomms and media-based campaigns.

In our latest episode, we are joined by our Building Brum partners and sponsors Solus. We caught up with Sustainability Manager Ken Graham and Area Sales Manager Lee Simmonds to look at the sustainability journey Solus are making as a UK tiling market leader and the wider journey being made by the tiling industry globally.

 We look at how the role of a product supplier has changed in years gone by and developed into a much more collaborative role working alongside contractors, architects, interior designers and developers to provide the best and most sustainable solution to a new or existing development.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital,  Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 1,500,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

About Solus Sustainability Manager Kenneth Graham:

Ken qualified as an Energy Consultant in the UK in 1986. In 1991, he emigrated to New Zealand and was recruited by the NZ Government to promote energy efficiency and conservation for homeowners and businesses throughout the country.  Ken travelled the world representing NZ at international conferences, gaining a broad understanding of the different approaches to efficient practice in many countries. Working in several other sectors including rubber tyre, plastics, cardboard, glass recycling; food waste management, and water management before gaining higher level sustainability management qualifications. These gave Ken the knowledge to bring all my experiences together; and how to create Sustainability Management Plans and Supplier Assessments.

As time ticks away to BCC’s Net Zero by 2030 target we caught up with Rob Nield - leader of the Webb Yates Engineers Midlands office and chartered structural engineer – to talk about his approach to lowering embodied (or upfront) carbon which can be responsible for a significant portion of a building’s carbon life cycle.

We talked about their current portfolio and plans in the region, their approach to design and sustainability and how they are using innovative material systems coupled with extensive research and development to challenge the status quo in contemporary building design.

 The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital,  Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 1,000,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

Rob Nield, Associate Director - MEng (Hons) CEng MIStructE

 Rob is a Chartered Structural Engineer with over 17 years of experience on a wide range of projects, both in the UK and internationally. During this time, he has successfully led a number of multidisciplinary teams to deliver innovative and sustainable project solutions. His design experience covers structural steelwork, reinforced concrete, timber, masonry, glass, and post-tensioned stone.

Starting his career at Arup in 2005 Rob joined Webb Yates Engineers’ London office in 2012 delivering projects including Barrett’s Grove – a Stirling Prize shortlisted residential development in Stoke Newington with a cross laminated timber structure; and Wimbledon College of Art – one of the first Timber Concrete Composite structures in the UK and winner of numerous sustainability awards.

Relocating to the Midlands in 2015 he returned to Arup to deliver regionally significant projects including the design of HS2 Interchange Station in Solihull with it’s organic timber roof, and One Centenary Way an innovative 16 storey exoskeleton building suspended over the Queensway tunnel.

Rob rejoined Webb Yates Engineers in 2020 to lead the Midlands office and currently manages a varied portfolio of exciting projects across the UK and abroad.

Having worked with numerous leading architects his expertise lies in the production of efficient, elegant and low carbon structural solutions as part of an overall holistic design. An in-depth understanding of the design process, ability to visually communicate high level ideas and fine attention to detail during the construction stage has led to Rob’s track record in successfully delivering high quality and award winning projects.

We are joined by the team behind Creative Retail: Matt Pegg and Ed Purcell. Both are experts in commercial real estate across Birmingham and the UK. We will be looking at how the high street has changed over the past ten years and what needs to happen to boost, develop and take it forward in the decades in the come.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital,  Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 1,000,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

Matt Pegg Investment Director

Matt has worked in Commercial Real Estate for 15 years in both consultancy and client-side positions. Having acted for regional and national retailers in an agency capacity and as retail asset manager of LCP’s £100m Provincial Portfolio, he is highly adept at identifying and implementing investment strategies across the full commercial property life cycle.

Matt now advises private, regional and national clients such as Queensway Group, Midcounties Cooperative, Evolve Estates, Watkin Jones, Home Bargains, Lidl UK and WM Morrisons PLC.

Ed Purcell Director

 Ed has been involved with the retail and leisure industry for over 13 years. He started his career at King Sturge before joining Cushman & Wakefield in 2011 as a member of the Midlands Retail Agency Team.

Ed currently advises pension fund Landlords on Shopping Centre and High Street disposals, national retailers on the acquisition and disposal of shops, developers on Out of Town Warehousing schemes, and also independent landlords and retailers.

This summer the British Council for Offices NextGen Midlands and Building Brum collaborated to present a special event, looking at the careers of industry and business leaders in Birmingham who are forging and shaping the UK’s second City. 

Building Brum Programme Director Conor Nolan was  joined by Calthorpe Estates Masterplanning and Development Director Ralph Minott, Turley Senior Director and Head of Planning Midlands Angela Reeve and Associated Architects Director Stephen Townsend.  

The evening looked at the paths that these three inspirational leaders have followed, how they have created a balance between work and life and if where they are today has followed the trajectory they set out at the start of the careers.

This event was kindly sponsored by Solus Ceramics, Dline and The Senator Group.

Following on from our recent Building Brum roundtable event held with Careys and hosted by Cundall, we caught up with Careys Regional Director for the Midlands, Tom Wraight, to talk about what is being done in Birmingham to help tackle unemployment within the City.

We find out more in today’s podcast about the opportunities that our sector offers for those who are unemployed or looking for a career change and also, how the sector as a whole can support local communities, plus develop skills across the region by creating employment opportunities within developments across Birmingham and the Midlands.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital,  Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 2,000,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

This May we are joined by Francesca Wilkinson, Sustainability and Environmental Manager at Willmott Dixon. Francesca provides us with a unique insight into how the fuel crisis we are facing in society today is impacting the Net Zero agenda. We also look at how net-zero technology is being successfully implemented on projects across the country and the approach from the private sector in net zero and net zero ready buildings.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 200,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

After graduating with an MSc in Environmental Management, Francesca joined Willmott Dixon in 2017 as a Sustainability intern. Completing the Management Trainee scheme, before being promoted to Assistant Environmental Manger and earlier this year to Environmental & Sustainability Manger.  She was drawn to the challenges of the construction industry- being one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions, resource depletion and pollution- due to the real opportunities to make a substantial difference. Her experience is wide ranging and has included a number of award-winning projects as well as being honoured with the G4C Future Leader 2020 Construction Excellence Award.  Particular expertise includes energy efficiency, carbon reduction and reducing the energy gap performance, helping Willmott Dixon create Brilliant Buildings and deliver on their ambition for all new buildings to achieve net zero operation carbon by 2030, and net zero embodied carbon by 2040. Francesca is a Practitioner Member of IEMA with Registered Environmental Practitioner most recently helping to development an Extended Resource Ownership Model for Circular Economy in the construction sector.

This April we are joined by Geoff Fawkes from Sunbelt Rentals, who are a key strategic partner and supporter of the Building Brum series. As the largest providers of equipment hire across the UK, Sunbelt Rentals are in the unique position of supplying and supporting a huge range of infrastructure projects both large and small across the country, helping to regenerate and transform cities nationwide. We are going to be taking a look at the steps being taken across these building sites to make the construction sector more sustainable.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 200,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

Digbeth has been on a journey of regeneration and transformation since Oval Real Estate acquired the Custard Factory, Fazely studios and numerous other sites back in 2017. In this month’s Building Brum podcast we caught up with Oval's Head of Estates Jo Salmon who has been at the heart of the regeneration of Digbeth.

Oval Real Estate is at forefront of the regeneration of Digbeth and redeveloping 42 acres of land between the HS2 Curzon Street station and High Street Deritend. We look at how the area has developed and grown over the past five years, reflecting on the journey taken by Oval and what needs to happen next in Digbeth to further its ongoing regeneration.

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 200,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.

Jo Salmon— Head of Estates – Oval Real Estate

Jo combines her 20 years of extensive commercial real estate experience with her can do personal approach to help reinvigorate and reactivate the Digbeth estate. Having worked at Richard Ellis, and London & Cambridge Properties, Jo now runs the Oval office in Birmingham bringing energy to the property, marketing and events team ensuring it remains the beating heart of the creative quarter of the city.

We caught up with Broadway Malyan’s Director of Urbanism Danny Crump to find out more about one of Birmingham's most ambitious masterplans, the public realm transformation of Snow Hill. Danny has been at the heart of this project since its inception back in 2015 and has been instrumental in enhancing this district. We look at how the area has transformed over the past seven years since the project begin and what it means to enhance a public realm in the heart of a major city.   

The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 200,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.
 

Danny is a Chartered Landscape Architect with over 20 years of professional experience. He joined Broadway Malyan in 2011 and leads the Manchester Studio and UK Landscape Architecture team. He is a passionate placemaker establishing and leading Broadway Malyan’s ’Place Team’ providing value driven advocacy within the built environment for multi-sectoral clients.

His experience is wide ranging and has included a number of award winning projects. Particular expertise includes city core regeneration and urban realm masterplanning, city street and space design and public squares and parks. He has also led and delivered a number of projects at university campuses across the UK.

Danny’s experience of working in urban centres was recognised recently with his appointed to MHCLG’s HighStreet Task Force Expert/Mentor and Facilitator Panel.Most often working in a multidisciplinary environment,Danny has delivered a number of significant major projects.He is experienced in lead designer and consultant roleundertaking this position on the majority of commissions. He is experienced in site diagnosis techniques with a focus on urban data analytics, using this skill to inform the design process.