Designing Communities, Not Just Buildings with Tim Riley

Designing Communities, Not Just Buildings with Tim Riley

Inside Property Development · 2025-06-10

For this episode, Paul is joined by Tim Riley, director of the award-winning architecturalpractice RCKa. He believes buildings can be catalysts for social change and has experienceof building homes and facilities that genuinely have transformed people´s lives and improvedareas. You will learn how you can be involved in transforming our society by providing greathomes. The Property Development Scorecard https://millbanklandacademy.scoreapp.com KEY TAKEAWAYS Community groups tend to be focused on delivering their services, so rarely have theenergy and resources to dedicate to a building project. Consulting with the community and stakeholder groups helps you to create anappealing scheme. Only a small % of an architect´s time is spent drawing. The best architects spend alot of time liaising to get the most out of a site e.g. the structural engineer and testingthe design Fully housing policy compliant schemes rarely stack up. Leverage design review panels. They really are there to help. The later living sector is still underserved. Developing later living on peri urban areas makes sense. Communities near later living villages can also benefit from new infrastructure, shopsand facilities. Later living communities are multi-generational e.g. They have play facilities forgrandchildren. BEST MOMENTS "From the outset we decided that we were going to design an appeal ready scheme.” “As a developer, the best thing you can do is focus on good design.”“You´re delivering homes at a third of the cost land wise.” RESOURCEShttps://www.linkedin.com/in/timriley2https://rcka.co.uk ABOUT THE HOST Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experiencein land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planningconsents.Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up fromlabouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, BarrattDevelopments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now amultimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicatedto property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secretsthe big housebuilders don’t want you to know! Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTechCo, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc PropertyDevelopment at London South Bank University. CONTACT METHODLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgsMillbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.ukInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficialYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopmentThis Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Inside Property Development

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.



Colourful and at times controversial, the show focuses on how to do development the right way and aims to inspire and empower developers of all levels, as well as other professionals in the both the private and public sectors, to work together to build more and better homes that we can all be proud of.



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