Kingswood Homes Appoints New Director

AWARD-WINNING Kingswood Homes has announced Adele Lewis-Ward MRICS as its new business development and funding director as it looks to build on its success and continual growth.

Adele, who has more than 30 years’ experience within the private and public property sector, first came into contact with Kingswood in 2018, helping to secure three finance loans for the developer.

“My new role at Kingswood is to assist this successful and multi-award-winning company to grow, through diversification and securing additional funding,” she explained.

Adele recalled being immediately impressed with both the company’s ambitions and the people within it. Acknowledging “their professionalism, passion, and commitment to build good quality homes in an environmental and community focus setting”.

“This appealed to my values,” she added. “It was clear to me that Kingswood had all the tools and vision to grow and to make a positive difference to people’s quality of life.

“The time and commitment to the charity work through The Great Big House Giveaway for Derian House Children’s Hospice, is a reflection of their selfless nature.”

A chartered surveyor, Adele has experience in all professional categories of the private sector including valuations, portfolio management, investment, landlord and tenant and development. The majority of her career, however, has been spent in the public sector with Homes England, initially in a corporate role, acting as national lead on several national programmes including Urban Regeneration Companies, Accelerated Delivery, Custom Build, and latterly as Head of Development Finance covering the NW & Midlands.

During the pandemic she led her team to successfully contract 52 loan transactions with SME housebuilders, committing £114m loan finance to facilitate the building of c2,000 homes across the NW and Midlands.

Adele’s interest in property began through helping her father renovate terraced houses and their 200-year-old family farmhouse, where she grew up.

“My children have inherited the passion for property with the elder two studying real estate at university to become surveyors ,” Adele, from Appleton, added.

Adele’s appointment comes as the company celebrates being awarded Housebuilder of the Year in the Insider North West Residential Property Awards.

A rapidly growing business, Kingswood has gone from building 36 homes in the year to March 2020, to 100-plus in the last financial year and is targeting 250 homes a year by 2024-25.

“The main challenge for me in my new role, which is facing us all, relates to economic changes and how this impacts the housing sector.” Adele added.

Headquartered at Little Hoole, near Preston, Kingswood is currently building and selling homes at Green Hills in Feniscowles, The Hawthorns in Elswick and The Market Quarter in Hatherleigh, Devon, with plans for a new site in the Lancashire village of Hoddlesden and more in the pipeline.

Managing director Paul Jones said: “Adele is as passionate about building homes and communities as ourselves, so she is a perfect fit.

“Her previous roles and the strength of her experience will ensure that we can continue our efforts to grow and to have a primary role in the quality property development industry, while maintaining an interest and concern for those around us and the charities we support.”

For more information about Kingswood Homes see http://kingswoodhomes.uk.com/