Site and title
Identification, ownership, encumbrances, and a first map of what would kill the scheme: flood, heritage, access, utilities, neighbouring uses.
Land promotion
Consent that a housebuilder will actually buy.
The large promoters are clear about their model: they fund planning, take the risk, and share the sale. We keep that alignment where a promotion agreement is right — and we add something they rarely offer: a principal who also knows how the site gets built.
Not a volume house. A promotion practice.
Gladman, Richborough, Catesby and their peers exist to industrialise strategic land. That works at scale. It is the wrong shape for an owner who wants to know who is arguing their site at committee, who selected the planner, and whether the layout survives a constructor’s red pen.
We promote a small number of opportunities properly: evidence before slogans, a consultant team we will stand behind, and a permission designed to be delivered — access, utilities, phasing, and sale — not merely granted.
- Appraisal before ambition Location, policy, constraints, title, and a first view of infrastructure. If the site should not be promoted, we say so early.
- A deliverable scheme Layout and density that can be built and sold, not a maximum that collapses in committee or in a tender pack.
- Planning as a campaign Pre-application, statutory consultees, community, then a submission that already knows the authority’s objections.
- Value at disposal When the time comes to sell, the pack is what a developer underwrites: permission, conditions, and technical risk — not a story.
How an instruction runs
Four stages. No theatre.
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01
Appraise
Site search or a site you already hold. Desktop evidence, red flags, and a go / no-go.
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02
Assemble
Architect, planner, and technical specialists selected for this authority and this typology — not a standing roster for every county.
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03
Promote
Pre-app through determination. We run the programme, the narrative, and the responses.
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04
Realise
Consented asset: hold, build, or sell. Disposal advice when a competitive sale is the point of the work.
What you instruct
The land product, named plainly.
Promotion agreements have a clean logic the market already understands: the promoter carries planning cost and shares in the uplift at sale. Where that structure fits, we use it. Where you need advice without selling the site, we work as your representative. We will not dress a consultancy brief as a funded promotion, or the reverse.
Feasibility
Planning policy, likely density, cost of getting to a decision, and whether the residual value still works when those costs are honest.
Planning
Strategy, applications, environmental work, and the political reality of the authority — not a template statement of community involvement.
Stakeholders
Landowners, parish, officers, and statutory bodies. Quiet rooms first. Noise only when it serves the permission.
If you hold land, write.
A location, a title plan if you have one, and what you want from it — plots, a sale, or a long game. We reply to contact@stevejmartin.co.uk.