John Connearn

Name

John Connearn

Department

Residential Development

Pitch to the client for the work, win the instruction, create a marketing & disposal plan and carry out the marketing process to secure and drive through the sale are some of my responsibilities on the disposal of a listed former care home for a large NHS Foundation Trust.

The working atmosphere on this job is very good as the client has been given a clear timeline of what we are doing and what we need to do in order to achieve their goals. Keeping our promises can be hard but wins respect from them.

One of the biggest challenges of this project is that the listed building had a boundary problem at the rear which we discovered after we had pitched for the work; we had to resolve it in order to have a saleable asset. This meant us negotiating on behalf of our client with the adjoining owner, in order to pull together a viable site . The reason why this had to be done was because in the current market there are too many easy options going around to leave the problem in the prospective sale, so we chose to deal with it.

The most rewarding aspect of the project has been hearing the client say that of the various different disposals and projects they have ongoing, this particular disposal is the only one that has gone through on time as per our project plan. This was great news as it implies that our rivals are perhaps not achieving what they promised the client!

In the end, dealing with the project was not too demanding. However, in all development work the issue is not what you plan out, but it is how you deal with the unexpected and uncontrollable issues that prove the most difficult elements in any project.