“I previously worked as a planning consultant to housebuilders preparing planning and submitting planning applications, helping to get land allocated for development and applying for government funding for sites that otherwise wouldn’t be viable,” Kieran, who joined Kingswood at its Little Hoole headquarters in November, explained.
“The main attraction of moving in-house to work directly for Kingswood was that it’s a more hands-on role and I’ll be able to take a scheme from promoting it to the planners to get planning permission and then watch it being built and monitoring the progress and how that triggers various legal agreements. I enjoy being part of the whole project process and am already starting to understand more of the technical details of the sites. It’s really exciting and interesting.”
He added: “Working for Kingswood as a SME housebuilder rather than a big PLC you can have much more of a voice and can influence the direction of a project more as there’s more flexibility.”
Kingswood Homes, headquartered at Little Hoole, near Preston, is currently building at Green Hills in Feniscowles and The Hawthorns in Elswick, Lancashire, and at The Market Quarter in Hatherleigh, Devon. The company also has plans for 79 new homes in the Lancashire village of Hoddlesden.
“When I went to Green Hills I just thought ‘wow’ as it’s such a stunning development in terms of the design,” Kieran said.
“I appreciate that every Kingswood stie is different and they put a lot of work in to the design of every site. I’m excited at the challenge of helping Kingswood deliver high quality residential developments across the North West.”
Kieran, 26, lives in Bamber Bridge with his girlfriend Sally Riley, who also works in planning. The couple met while at Newcastle University.
Kieran studied master planning/urban, community and regional planning. He graduated with a 2:1 in May 2019 and went onto work for Barton Wilmore as a graduate planner before joining Hive Land and Planning, achieving chartered status in September 2020.
He chaired a young planners conference in 2019 attended by 400 of his peers. Currently junior vice chair of the Royal Town Planning Institute North West, Kieran is set to take over as chair.
Managing director of Kingswood Homes Paul Jones said: “As the business grows it’s imperative that we strengthen our team by recutting people like Kieran with the skills, passion and enthusiasm required to help us move forward. Kieran is a welcome addition to the team and will be key to helping our schemes progress through the planning process enabling us to deliver much-needed high quality homes.”