The Wellcome Trust
Urban&Civic was acquired by The Wellcome Trust in 2021. Both Urban&Civic and Catesby Estates form part of The Wellcome Trust’s investment portfolio.
The Wellcome Trust are the world’s third largest charity seeking to support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing.
L&Q Estates Acquisition
In August 2024, Urban&Civic acquired L&Q Estates, who had been in the business of identifying, promoting and acquiring land for over 60 years.
The acquisition aligns with the Catesby Estates business model and builds on our already significant land portfolio and unrivalled expertise in promoting land for development.
This, combined with our already significant financial backing, provides us with a clear platform advantage over other land promotion businesses and establishes Catesby Estates as market leader within the sector. Find out more here.
Well Established Team Of Land Promotion Experts
With six in-house specialist teams focused on land, planning, technical, design, public consultation and finance, our team ensures your land is in safe hands.
Many of the Catesby Estates team have worked for major housebuilders or developers, and are affiliated to professionally accredited bodies within their field.
This in-house land promotion expertise, and our policy of working in collaboration with landowners, councils and local stakeholders has built us a first class reputation for bringing forward land with planning consent for new homes.
Find out more about the Catesby Estates team here.
A Reputation For De-risking Housing Delivery
As innovators within the land promotion sector, Catesby Estates was one of the first to recognise the importance and added value, in-house technical expertise can deliver to both landowners and housebuilders.
Our technical team is unique amongst land promoters, and are able to bring forward sites with comprehensive technical background work completed, and offer value engineered solutions to any site constraints.
This means there is less upfront risk for a housebuilder, that comes with a land site that has not been fully considered from a technical and deliverability perspective.
This in turn increases the speed of housing delivery, with housebuilders able get onsite and start construction quicker.
Housebuilders and Local Authorities can be confident a planning permission obtained by Catesby Estates is deliverable.
Planning and Housing Land Supply Knowledge
Catesby Estates have in-house extensive knowledge of planning, and meeting housing demand in areas of clearly identified need, working closely with Planning Officers to gain recommendations for approval.
For the planning process to work effectively, land promoters, housebuilders, councils and residents need to work together in partnership.
By researching and understanding a Local Authority’s housing land supply, Catesby are able to identify sites which are suitable for delivery. Residential land sites can be promoted over the longer term in conjunction with the Council’s planning strategy if necessary.
If the Local Authority is unable to demonstrate a 5 year supply of housing land, an immediate planning application may be appropriate.
Catesby work at both a local and national level to help build policy which supports the delivery of new homes and infrastructure in key areas across the country.
