Duncan Blackmore, founder of development company Arrant Land discusses how he adds value to small sites, what he looks for at auctions, as well as his work for Arrant Industries as an ‘urban practitioner’ and research and development vehicle, Neighbourhood.

Duncan Blackmore, founder of development company Arrant Land, urban practitioner as Arrant Industries and one third of research and development vehicle Neighbourhood. 

Can you tell us about Arrant Land?
Arrant Land is a small development business which I established with a private funding partner in 2011. Prior to Arrant Land, we’d already worked together on a few successful projects and established a high level of trust. Since establishing the company, we’ve undertaken a further 12 projects, all in London or Kent – each of which started with the purchase of an unconsented site or building.

Those projects will result in about 50 additional homes on previously developed urban sites or through the conversion of existing buildings. Of those, we’ve delivered about half so far, with a few in the pipeline and some consented sites sold to be delivered by others.

Why small sites?
The business case for small sites lies in a combination of the opportunities for providing a return on ingenuity and intellectual tenacity, and the scale being one over which I can maintain a very high degree of control – of the outcomes, and of how our plans might adapt to changing circumstances.

On a more personal level, I believe that urban small sites have a disproportionate potential for innovation and expression, and that plurality and contrast are important to the life of the city.

Red House, London by Arrant Land with 31/44 Architects. (Credit: Rory Gardiner)

Is there a long-term viable future for small site development in the UK at the moment?
In pure commercial terms, it’s extremely difficult – even before relatively recent increases in construction and borrowing costs. The inherent complexity of small sites results in significantly enhanced risk at both planning and construction stages. In my view these risks are better managed by a small independent operator with the freedom to change course quickly, and it’s been demonstrated, many times over, that bigger developers and landowners, with layers of decision-making and rigid risk management requirements, find small sites close to impossible.

Fundamentally, I don’t believe that anything about small sites development is scalable and that the only available efficiencies lie in bringing construction ‘in house’ and in the simplification of funding. If these efficiencies can be captured and combined with nimble decision-making I think there are still reasons to be optimistic about the sector, but the model is highly reliant on realistic land values.

A significant problem for me is that the more I gather experience and relative certainty about the costs and risks involved, the less I am able to compete for land in a market land with the dreamers and optimists who don’t have that experience. That naivety leads to a very high percentage of first time developers failing or leaving the sector after battling to ‘break even’ on projects they thought would be profitable.

Beyond financial viability, small sites development is highly socially and environmentally viable. For a multitude of reasons, we absolutely should be densifying places with existing amenities and making best use of existing buildings, and we should aspire to do so in ways which are equitable, which lead the way in responding to the climate crisis and which enrich the collective urban experience.

The barriers to this are largely political, but whilst planning policy (and decision-making) could be more helpful, and public landowners could recognise that selling to the highest bidder does not lead to good outcomes, the number of developers equipped to successfully deliver small sites is nowhere near the level required to fulfil that potential.

Haddo Yard, Whitstable, by Arrant Land with architect Denizen Works. (Credit: David Barbour)

How do you generate value?
The current Arrant Land model is heavily dependent on adding financial value through the planning process. There will always be others prepared to build more cheaply or to bet on a rising market. I like to sleep at night, and to do that, I need to have added value before the shovels hit the ground. The process of adding maximum value during the planning stages is unpredictable and varied, but it definitely requires a combination of determination, rigour and flexibility, and the support of an attentive team of collaborators.

How much of your day is spent on auction websites? What are you looking for?
I look through pretty much every property auction in the UK – something like 3,000-5,000 properties each month. Ninetynine per cent are dismissed immediately but I’m very disciplined about forcing myself to provide a justification every time – usually its very basic factors like ‘location’, ‘too small’, ‘too big’, ‘potential too limited’, etc. – so that each is an active decision. It’s not a passive process of browsing.

After hundreds of thousands of properties, that’s an extremely efficient process – I can do it while standing on a bus or watching Great British Menu – until I find something which justifies the time required for a deeper level of understanding. The next level would typically involve investigating the title and ownership history, planning history and local sales values, but will also include making quick judgements about technical factors like access, contamination, trees and services. By this point, I also need to understand ‘why’ the property has ended up at auction and to have developed a picture of why, of the thousands of people who will look at it, I might have some sort of unique insight or advantage.

The stage beyond that is absurdly inefficient. I could easily spend a week trying to form a clear idea for a development. This process would usually involve spending time in the area, making physical inspections, in-depth scrutiny of planning policy, legal work, design feasibility and financial modelling, but it also involves building a more intangible case around enjoyment, learning and relationships. Of these, one in three might result in making a bid. Of those, one in ten might be successful. About half our sites have come through auction, with the remainder through agents or (once) direct from a Local Authority.

Costa’s Barbers, London by Arrant Industries with architects Brisco Loran. The project saw a shop on Battersea High Street remade as a space for living, for work, and for trade for Brisco Loran co-directors Thom Brisco and Pandora Loran.

Can you tell us about your other activities? What is Arrant Industries?
Arrant Land is the vehicle through which I pursue my interest in commercially viable small sites development. I describe Arrant Industries as Arrant Land’s ‘conceptual parent company’, but it’s essentially an avatar for my personal creative practice as somebody interested in cities and the processes by which we shape and share space. Over the years, I’ve realised a number of even smaller more experimental projects which I now understand as urban explorations of interests beyond ‘development’. I’ve recently completed Costa’s Barbers, a High Street project in collaboration with Brisco Loran, and am currently working on Arrant Industries projects in Whitstable (with Sanchez Benton) and Valencia (with FORO).

I’m also a co-founder, with John Nordon and Lou Dawson, of Neighbourhood – a research and development company. Current work as part of Neighbourhood includes working with Studio MUTT to make our collaborative 2023 Davidson Prize-winning proposal in Liverpool a reality. As Neighbourhood, we’re interested in challenging the full range of assumptions and conventions around how development happens, from alternative land ownership and funding models to proposing new typologies.

‘Helping-Hands‘, a project by Neighbourhood with Studio MUTT, was a proposal that sought to address the urgent need for temporary homeless accommodation and support services in Bootle, Liverpool, with a particular focus on the needs of young people leaving the care system. The project was the winner of the 2023 Davidson Prize. (Credit: Studio MUTT)

How do you go about selecting architects to work with?
It’s mostly about relationships and about being able to visualise an enjoyable and mutually beneficial process. I meet a lot of architects and, often, a site will remind me of a conversation, of an architect’s academic or research interests, or I will have a memory that they grew up nearby. I need to have confidence that the project will mean more to the whole team than ‘just’ the money, and that it will receive the unusual level of interrogation and attention to detail that I require, so I look for genuine connections and unusual motivations.

What is the one thing an architect could say or do that would make you disinclined to work with them?
“We have 280 jobs in the office at the moment.”