Residential

Woods Hardwick have appointed 10 new staff members over an eight week period this summer as part of its expansion plans across their Bedford, Birmingham and London offices.

The additional new staff now takes Woods Hardwick to an 82-strong workforce – a 14% growth in the team for the multidiscipline practice that specialises in architecture, engineering, planning and surveying.

Yesterday Planning Director Paul Woods alongside Centre for the New Midlands’ Chris Smith, presented at the British BIDS conference, looking at the Levelling Up agenda and what it means for UK High Streets.
The event focused on BIDs, Culture and Communities, looking at how they can work together to drive economic growth and help their communities - with the main message; the need for greater collaboration.

Paul Wright joined Woods Hardwick as an Associate in our Residential Architecture team in August 2021.
A RIBA Chartered Architect with experience working both in practice and for a residential developer, Paul shares more about his role and why a career in architecture is so rewarding.

Planning Director Russell Gray attended Day One of the Built Environment Networking’s Oxford-Cambridge Arc Conference. 
The feeling in the room was clear from the start - a real concern of political inertia at the national level; that the Government is no longer as committed to the Arc, with the lack of any mention in the recent Comprehensive Spending Review evidence of this.

Over the past decade, Birmingham has seen a surge in development and investment, with focus on the regeneration of key city centre sites. 
This has seen new residential communities formed in the central area alongside retail, business and cultural destinations. 

Back in January 2020, Woods Hardwick’s architects and engineers secured outline planning permission for Denison Investments for a site off Yelnow Lane, Sharnbrook, a highly desirable village location situated in North Bedfordshire.
Through our existing knowledge and experience of the site, the Woods Hardwick’s architectural team continued to support the site’s developer, Dandara Ltd, in successfully securing planning permission for the subsequent reserved matters application for 51 family homes.

For any budding architectural technicians or technologists out there, find out what it’s really like working as part of our growing architecture team.
Jake Snooks is a Junior Architectural Technician in our Bedford office. He joined Woods Hardwick in October 2020, and over the last 10 months has been busy supporting our Residential Architecture team.

The construction industry is ramping up its use of modular construction.
Against the backdrop of the housing crisis, a lack of affordable homes, planning reform and a skills shortage  - throw in a global pandemic - and the current landscape needs to be reviewed - and quick!

We are celebrating the news that an Inspector has granted planning permission for our planning team’s appeals for a cross-boundary scheme of up to 100 new homes on an unallocated greenfield site in the Green Belt in St Albans District and Welwyn Hatfield Borough, for client, Canton Ltd. 

As we emerge out of lockdown, to say that Birmingham is a hive of development activity is quite the understatement!  With HS2, plans for next year’s Commonwealth Games, the expansion of