Inside Property Development

By Paul HiggsBusiness Entrepreneurship Education Investing Courses

Inside Property Development episodes

February 04Will the New Design PPG Make Your Deals Easier – or Impossible? With David Birbeck
In this episode, Paul once again sits down with David Birbeck, one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to planning and development. Together, they discuss the government´s new draft Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) and how it should work in practice.
David is the CEO of Design for Homes, a Housing Design Awards director, an Honorary Fellow of RIBA, HCA design board member, NHBC councillor and Housing Forum board member. Both he and Paul have decades of experience, so this episode also provides practical advice about how developers can adapt and build high quality schemes that will sell fast.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Liveability, climate, nature, and movement now trump façades and style. Policy is finally shifting from how closely new development mimic what is already in the area to how schemes work for everyday life.
The new PPG replaces a tangle of guides with one much clearer, more visual document.
It is vital that developers familiarise themselves fully with the PPG. If you don´t, you’ll be at a disadvantage when planners and inspectors start quoting it.
Climate, nature, streets, and drainage are meant to be designed together - multi‑functional green and blue infrastructure is now an integral part of policy logic, rather than a nice‑to‑have add‑on.
National space standards still exist, but the draft PPG treats them as a tool for design codes, not a blanket rule. That really matters in places where adding a couple of square metres just for the sake of it at £4,000/m² can completely kill the viability, that applies to 100s of marginal sites.

BEST MOMENTS
“It's probably more pro-development than it has been for a long time at the moment.”
“They have replaced all the stuff about context and history and character and focused instead, first and foremost on livability, and then climate and nature and movement.”
“You can have as good a plan in as you like …. people still aren't going to build stuff if they can't sell it.”
“Historically, there has been design guidance or talk about design that has no real understanding or bearing on the realities or viability of development.”

GUEST AND EPISODE RESOURCES
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-birkbeck-399b771a
https://hdawards.org/
https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/design-and-placemaking-planning-practice-
guidance/design-and-placemaking-planning-practice-guidance
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
1 hr 1 min
January 28- Breaking into Property Development: Early Career Strategies for Graduates
In this episode, Paul sits down with Lucas, a recent Bristol civil engineering graduate, who is considering becoming a property developer. Together, they discuss why everything in development starts with finding and controlling land, how planning policy has evolved to make that both harder and more crucial, and why today’s planning environment might actually be one of the best times to get into development despite a tough sales market.
Paul lays out the residual land value logic that underpins every deal and sets out which early-career roles provide the best learning opportunity for would-be property developers. Including, whether to work for large housebuilders or smaller developers, how to approach land directors directly, and the mindset and skills that matter, over time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Graduate schemes at major housebuilders are still a powerful shortcut into property development. You learn the entire process.
If you want to be more focused, target learning how to find land you can put together a profitable deal for.
Being able to communicate effectively, negotiate and understand people is critical for developers. This is especially important when dealing with landowners and decision‑makers.
Proactive outreach beats simply sitting there and waiting for a vacancy and then applying. Directly contacting land directors and developers with a message that is tailored to them can help you to get in even if there are no advertised vacancies.
Today we are facing huge demand for housing, a more pro‑development planning policy and fewer SME competitors. A combination that creates strong opportunities for those who have taken the time to really understand land and planning.
In a tougher sales market, the margin for error is tiny. Accurate appraisals and disciplined land offers matter more than ever.

BEST MOMENTS
“Everything has flipped so knowing how to build stuff is just nowhere near enough. You actually need to understand land and planning.”
"In all business, and in life, actually, attitude is the most important thing."
"It really is all about land and planning. It´s the key."
"Most of the best SME developers used to work for house builders."

EPISODE RESOURCES
Paresh Chandegra interview with Paul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1RpVHBqxJQ
The Housebuilder´s Bible - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Housebuilders-Bible-15-Mark-Brinkley/dp/1916016839
The Art of the Deal . https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trump-Art-Deal-Donald-ebook/dp/B01N3U67V8

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
1 hr 2 min
January 21Are Small, High Quality Schemes the Smartest Play for Developers Now? – with Steve Morris
In this episode Paul is joined by Steve Morris the co-founder and Managing Director of Linfield Construction, to discuss the viability of building a property development business later in life – especially if you come from a contracting and commercial background rather than following the more typical pure developer route.
The conversation covers listed buildings, conversions, contracting margins and planning risk and why so many opportunities don’t stack up once you price the build and contingency properly- As well as how main contractors actually make (or lose) their money, why pre‑applications and consultants don´t mitigate planning risk for you, and why smaller, high‑quality schemes can be a better approach.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Not every opportunity is worth chasing – saying no to most deals is essential; if something only works on heroic assumptions about planning, build, or sales, walking away is a win, not a loss.

Your past experience is an edge. But years in contracting, buying, or surveying won´t protect you if you are not disciplined enough to fully assess risk, choose the right partners and structure deals well.

Look at planning as a business risk, not just a technical process. Pre‑apps, officers, and consultants do not all work in the same way, they are inconsistent.

You need your own planning strategy. Set clear limits on how much time and money you can spend on chasing planning and a willingness to abandon sites that drag you into a hole.

Remember one big job, or one big client, can wipe you out if it goes wrong. A portfolio of smaller schemes and diverse workstreams can be a way to spread the risk. But this approach is still not risk free.

Later in life, you can design a business that actually suits you- Pursuing smaller, high‑quality projects that you are proud of and don´t require you to spend countless nights away from work is relentlessly scaling, just for the sake of it.

Planning policy has never been more pro‑development and competition from SME developers has never been lower, so if you’re disciplined about risk and viability, now is a surprisingly good time to pursue schemes.

BEST MOMENTS
“I would much rather be doing new build than conversions.”
“If you can’t ascertain the risk, then of course you need to stick, you know, a much bigger margin and a much bigger contingency on it.”
“Often, pre apps are not worth the paper they’re written on. They’ve basically got no legal or policy weight… people basically give way too much credence to pre apps.”

ABOUT THE GUEST
https://linfieldconstruction.co.uk

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder,
Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
57 min
January 14From Politics to Property Development
Today, Paul sits down with former Wandsworth councillor and Pocket Living land director and the Managing Director and founder of Urban Sketch Nick Cuff. Drawing on his rare mix of political and development experience, Nick explains what a genuinely pro‑development culture looks like, and why most UK councils are not pro-development.
They discuss the realities of making small urban sites work, the unintended damage caused by rigid space standards, and why current affordable housing expectations and late‑stage reviews are driving capital out of UK development.
If you’re a developer, architect or planning professional trying to get dense urban schemes to stack up in today’s market, this frank, practical conversation will give you plenty to think about.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Pro‑development councils are built, not found - leadership, culture and officer relationships matter as much as policy wording if you want schemes to move.

Small urban sites can deliver serious value, even 100% “affordable” products, when density, smart design and tenure innovation are combined well.

Rigid space standards and one‑size‑fits‑all unit mixes are killing viability and ignoring how real households live, especially sharers and young professionals.

Co‑living and compact rental models remain one of the few viable ways to do dense urban housing, but only in highly amenitiesed, well‑connected locations.

Paul and Nick discuss how and why the Pocket Development model worked.

Nick explains how Urban Sketch is leveraging the shared living trend to create more homes.

Developers and architects must get better at explaining viability and risk in simple terms. Without a clear story and end game, policy will keep loading costs ontoprojects and hardly anything will get built.

BEST MOMENTS
“If you've got good people, both members and officers, working together, planning's such a huge catalyst for economic growth, for renewal, for improvement to the micro and the macro, street and town environment.”
“We've loaded the current planning system with so many Snakes and Ladders that we've lost our ability to navigate it.”
“You can't get private money, someone else's money, to commit suicide on behalf of the state's lauded objectives (e.g. affordable housing).”
“We are witnessing the great decapitalization of the London and Southeast market. What capital is in the market is seeking, through impairment or exit, to get out, and very limited capital, fresh capital is willing to come back in.”

ABOUT THE GUEST
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-cuff-4757b220
http://propviews.co.uk

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
1 hr
January 07Architect/Developer Relationships with Cameron Straughan
How can architects and developers work together to deliver projects that are financially viable, genuinely regenerative – create schemes like this that actually get built as planned?
In this episode, Paul is interviewed by Cameron Straughan, a master’s student in architecture at the University of Bath, who is currently researching the realities of architect–developer relationships. Together they explore how these dynamics influence the design and delivery of housing in the UK.
They cover the gaps in architects training, how land values and viability, not greedy margins, really drive what gets off the drawing board and the role planning policy, sustainability standards and build costs are currently playing in the market.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Many architects qualify without spending time on a building site. That lack of hands‑on experience can lead to designs that don´t go through planning, are not financially viable or are too difficult to build.

Developers need to do the land and planning analysis, so they can give a clear, detailed brief to their architect rather than saying “do me a scheme” and hoping the architect solves everything.

Architects are taught a lot about sustainability and regenerative design, but very little about land economics, viability, and planning strategy – which is why many of their ideas never make it off the drawing board.

The misconception that developers are greedy and making huge profits is leading to the creation of ridiculous rules that add prohibitive costs, making many schemes undeliverable.

BEST MOMENTS
“It's the developer’s job to understand it all and manage it all, not the architects ... don´t assume that they would always know the best thing to do.”
“Build costs and different ways and techniques of building things all feeds into the equation when I give an architect an instruction.”
“Architects don’t get taught about the development process.”
“We can save a whole load of time not arguing and pushing for things that just don't work, if we could all get on the same page a bit more.”

CAMERON STRAUGHAN LINK
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-straughan-43545827b/?originalSubdomain=uk

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years; experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
57 min
December 17, 2025From NIMBYs to Co‑Creators: How Communities Are Leading Development Through CLTs?
This week, Tom Chance the Chief Executive of the National Community Land Trust Network joins Paul to discuss something most SME developers either haven’t heard of – or are massively underestimating - Community Land Trusts.
If you’re battling viability, stuck on marginal sites, or sick of being painted as “the bad guy” in planning committees, this episode is for you.
You’ll hear how CLTs can unlock land that doesn’t work at full residential land values, bring locals in as genuine partners, smooth planning, and even help with tricky Section 106 and funding challenges.
Use Paul´s Scorecard to test your current development assessment process and work out exactly how to improve it. Click here - http://bit.ly/MLASCORE or https://millbanklandacademy.scoreapp.com

KEY TAKEAWAYS
A Community Land Trust (CLT) is a nonprofit organization that owns land and leases it long-term to individuals or groups who own the homes, gardens, etc. on the land and ensure they remain affordable when re-sold.

There are already CLTs delivering schemes - everything from small village projects to a 600‑home former council estate in central London.

CLTs turn locals from objectors into co‑developers – they own the land and help decide what gets built.

Rural exception policies let CLTs unlock certain types of fields to be used for affordable homes. Landowners earn a reasonable amount and land that would not otherwise be financially viable for housing can be built on.

CLTs often do better at planning.

The real bottleneck is pre‑development cost and risk – getting to “site secured + consented” can cost £10–15k per home.

When communities see the viability spreadsheet, they quickly drop the fantasy of “gold‑plated everything” – CLTs force the community to make the same hard trade‑offs on spec, standards and rent that private developers have to.
BEST MOMENTS
"At the heart of it is local people owning and running a democratic local sort of social enterprise that is part of the process and gives them some stake in how development takes place."
"They vary from literally one or two homes in the edge of a village, to a CLT that owns a 600 home former council estate in central London.”
"Landowners say, well, you've got a better chance of getting permission for this because it's being done by a CLP for affordable housing."
“I describe it as policy acupuncture.”

EPISODE RESOURCES
https://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
50 min
December 09, 2025Is The UK´s Housing Crisis Mostly Fuelled by Planning Issues or By Its Property Tax System? – with Tony Vickers
Who really creates land value, who cashes in, and could changing how we tax land finally shift development from easy Greenfield wins to regenerating the brownfield sites where we actually need homes? – Tune in to find out.
Paul once again sits down with Tony Vickers to unpack why the UK housing crisis is so deep and to discuss ways to fix it. They reveal why so many developers are pushed towards easier Greenfield deals while complex brownfield sites stall despite people wanting to live there more. Paul and Tony look at how smarter land and property taxation, like that used in Hong Kong, could rebalance incentives, so that more of the right homes get delivered in the right places.

Use Paul´s Scorecard to test your current development assessment process and work out exactly how to improve it. Click here - http://bit.ly/MLASCORE or https://millbanklandacademy.scoreapp.com

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Land value rises because of what’s built around it e.g. new transport links, – not what the landowner does. They sell that land at a huge premium, which means what is built on that land is expensive - the landowner gets the bonus - the people who move there effectively pay for it.

If we push taxes on landowners too far selling is no longer viable, so sites don’t come forward and homes don’t get built. A middle ground has to be found.

Most brownfield sites are too expensive and way too risky to develop. The numbers just do not stack up, so developers favour greenfield sites. Tax reform and funding can potentially be used to de-risk brownfield development and make it viable again.

The number of hoops developers need to jump through to meet planning and environmental regs has reached the point where many developments are no longer financially viable.

Well‑run planning committees with transparent processes, site visits and basic viability knowledge can unlock good schemes, while poorly run ones can kill perfectly workable projects.

Better shared understanding between developers, councillors and communities about risk, viability and constraints could improve housing delivery as much as new policies or regulations.
BEST MOMENTS
“I don't think there's a lot wrong with the planning system, as Sir Jim O'Neill was indicating, it's the property tax system.”
“There's human behaviour, there's environmental costs all factored in, and what I fear is that the government has given itself this impossible target.”
“You've got to strengthen the hand of the local authorities a by allowing them to charge the full cost for developers.”

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
58 min
December 03, 2025Land Trading & Flipping Sites Explained
In this episode of Inside Property Development, Paul expands on the ins and outs of land trading. Including how to source off-market opportunities, add planning value, and decide when to sell or build. To help him do this, Paul shares the details of a recent experience he had of selling a small, fully de-risked site on LinkedIn.
This episode highlights the changing property landscape, the vital role of land traders, and provides advice for SME developers who are navigating today’s complex planning and building environment.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Prioritise finding off-market land opportunities and securing optimal planning permission yourself to maximise profits and reduce risk. It is not wise to rely solely on buying sites with planning already in place.

Mastering the skills of land trading and planning adds value not just to your own projects but also helps to fill a critical gap. As planning systems become more complex and intimidating for newcomers the UK needs more people to learn how to land trade.

Be adaptable in your sales approach; for smaller or unique projects, public promotion (like on LinkedIn) can connect you with the right buyers. Solely, relying on private networks is not always the right approach.

Investing in education, mentorship, and knowledge sharing within the industry not only supports your own growth but helps sustain and grow the wider SME property development community.

BEST MOMENTS
“There's no point people complaining about land traders - if the system was simple and easy as it should be, there wouldn't be any demand or need or market for land traders.”
“If you are a house builder or a developer … you have absolutely got to be de-risking things to start with.”
“I can get the planning, so I'm literally creating opportunities for people to build out that wouldn't otherwise exist.”

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years; experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder,
Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
21 min
November 26, 2025Land Trading, Option Agreements and Promotions – What They Are and How to Use Them
For this week's episode of Inside Property Development, Paul covers a subject a lot of his trainees at the Milbank Land Academy are asking about - land trading, option agreements and profit agreements. He explains how they are different and shares some use cases for each of them.
If you have a question about property development or today´s episode, we would love to hear from you! Please drop your questions in the comments section on YouTube or reach out to Paul directly at https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk/contact-us.
Your input will help shape future episodes and ensure that Paul is covering the topics that matter most to you, so it would be very much appreciated.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
The majority of profit in property development comes from finding off-market sites, securing them at a sensible price, and maximising their value through strategic planning and design enhancements.

Securing land via options, especially £1 options is a very good way of getting land at the right price. Landowners are happy to do this. You do the work to establish whether the land can be built on, and they know how much you will pay to take final ownership.

Land trading enables you to acquire off-market sites on favourable terms, maximising it´s value through planning, and then either sell the contract or rights, rather than building to make your profit.

Honing your fact finding and relationship building skills is essential, regardless of what approach you use.

Landowners, like all people, want certainty so offering them a fixed price helps to get deals over the line.

Promotional deals are best suited for long-term land opportunities with uncertain future value. They let landowners and developers share in the uplift once planning permission is secured, rather than setting a fixed price up front.

BEST MOMENTS
“Finding off-market sites, securing them on sensible terms, typically one pound option agreements and then adding maximum planning value… creates massive value.”
“They (landowners) are way, way, way less inclined to agree to a promotion type deal or a discount to market value deal when it's relatively short term.”

EPISODE RESOURCES
Milbank Academy Scorecard - https://millbanklandacademy.scoreapp.com

ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years & experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder,
Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound, award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
31 min
November 19, 2025Changing the Rules to Secure More and Better Housing
In this episode, Paul sits down with Tony Vickers, Chairman of West Park’s Council, who has had a long career in land use, planning and property development. Together, they discuss how land value is created, the case for land value taxation, and what it will take to solve the UK’s housing crisis.
Paul and Tony explore why collaboration between developers, policymakers, and communities matters, drawing on international examples and hard-won experience to reveal what really drives land values—and who should benefit.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Traditional adversarial relationships in property development are holding us back. Collaborative approaches between policymakers and developers are essential for addressing housing shortages.

The value of land is significantly influenced by the surrounding community and public investment, e.g. infrastructure, amenities, and shared demand, not so much by the owner. A land value tax would share the fruits of the value increase more fairly.

Taxing land value, instead of just housing transactions, encourages development, can fund local services, and make housing fairer. Tony shares the details of the exact mechanisms that make this happen.

The complexity of the UK system has led to sector consolidation at all levels, including with contractors. SME´s struggle too much to compete, simplification is part of the solution.

Continued dialogue to ensure all stakeholders and lawmakers have a clear understanding of the challenges and joint advocacy for policy reforms are vital to solving the housing crisis.

BEST MOMENTS
"A landowner does not create the value of the land. It’s everybody else around it."
"We should be thinking of land as something that we all own the value, because we’re all helping to create it."
"Developers are behaving perfectly rationally, doing as they do. The government has got to step in and change the tax system."
"If you tax an event or a transaction, you are deterring that event or transaction, which is why stamp duty is such a daft tax."
"We’ve got to be much more collaborative and try and work together, despite it being competitive."
"There is a real housing crisis. There is a real environmental crisis, and yet they’ve got to turn a profit on building those houses and protecting the environment."
House of Commons Report
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/49932/documents/268911/default/
British Housebuilders History Analysis by Fred Wellings
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/british-housebuilders-history-analysis/author/wellings-fred/
ABOUT THE HOST
Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years of experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.
Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound, award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.
In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!
Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs
Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
59 min

About Inside Property Development

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Inside Property Development is a no-nonsense show that rolls up its sleeves and digs into how the world of land, planning and property development really works in practice, providing rare access industry insiders and valuable insights into real-world development deals, as well as keeping you up to date with the latest industry news.

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