Keyland Developments, the property trading arm of Kelda Group and sister company to Yorkshire Water, has appointed Luke Axe as Planning Manager to work in the company’s Leeds City Centre office at The Embankment. Luke’s appointment follows on from the recent joining of Cameron Sanderson as Graduate Surveyor in July.
Luke is an experienced Town Planner with a 100% success record and he joins Keyland from Turley where he held the position of Senior Planner. At Turley, Luke was able to draw on his extensive Development Management experience which included management of a leading local planning authority’s planning functions. He has acted as Expert Witness at Public Inquiries and has participated in proceedings at the Crown and High Courts. With strong commercial aptitude, Luke has expertise in developing planning strategies and taking complex projects from inception through to planning permission and has extensive experience in land promotion across Yorkshire and the North East.
Luke’s skill-set is a strong match for Keyland who, in addition to regenerating Yorkshire Water’s redundant sites for over 20 years, works alongside independent landowners, corporates or regulated bodies to overcome obstacles to development on strategic sites, in order to facilitate regeneration by securing planning consent for future use through its Planning Promotional Agreements (PPA’s).
At Keyland, Luke will be taking a diverse range of strategic sites through the planning process, overcoming obstacles to development to enable the regeneration of a number of strategic sites across the north of the country. He joins the company at an exciting time as Keyland is driving forward the PPA side of the business.
Peter Garrett, Managing Director of Keyland Developments, said; “Luke is a highly motivated and driven Town Planner with an impressive 100% success rate. There are a lot of synergies with Luke’s experience and the nature of our portfolio and as we work with a range of parties on bringing about PPA deals, his expertise will play an integral part of bringing these opportunities to fruition. We have a great team here in Leeds and we are delighted to welcome Luke on board.”
Luke continued; “Keyland has a solid reputation within the region for facilitating the regeneration of a varied portfolio of sites from former reservoir sites to extensive mixed-use employment schemes. I am looking forward to working with the team as it grows its PPA business and will be putting into use my previous experience to help drive forward the continued growth and evolution of Keyland.”
