Job title: Place & Regeneration Manager
Salary: PO4 £47,665 - £50,908
Hours: 37 hours per week
Location: Merrion House, Leeds
Deliver some of the UK’s most ambitious regeneration programmes: Place & Regeneration Manager (up to £50,908k)
Prior to applying, please contact Stephanie.Mcgourlay@leeds.gov.uk for a candidate pack.
Leeds is one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities, with a regeneration agenda that is both ambitious and visible. Working at the heart of the Council’s Place and Regeneration Programmes team, you will operate across some of the most high-profile and complex projects in the country. Leeds is delivering one of the most ambitious and diverse regeneration programmes in the UK. This is a city investing in growth, infrastructure, housing, innovation and place-making of national and international significance. This is an environment where regeneration is not theoretical, it is happening now.
We are therefore building capacity to deliver the next era of growth for Leeds, and are now looking for Place & Regeneration Manager to play a central role in shaping and delivering this agenda.
You will be working on live, high-profile projects with real visibility and long-term impact, helping to unlock investment, shape major development opportunities and deliver regeneration that will define the future of the city – delivering long lasting benefits for communities.
This is a technical and commercial specialist role for someone who understands how to turn strategy into delivery, working across and through partnerships, unlocking sites and making things happen.
What The Role Entails
As a Place & Regeneration Manager, you will manage and co-ordinate major anchor project activity, site specific initiatives and thematic work to achieve housing, culture, economic, heritage and transport/ infrastructure led place & physical regeneration programmes.
The work programme could include managing activities around
- Major city centre regeneration within the proposed Mayoral Development Zone, including our flagship schemes the Innovation Arc, West End Riverside, Eastside, South Bank and the potential South Bank New Town toolkit.
- Culture and Sports led regeneration around Elland Road, Royal Armouries and Temple Works, and heritage grant programmes at Morley and Holbeck.
- Housing Growth and Choice – Working closely with developers and registered providers to unlock housing and affordable housing provision .
- Economic focused physical regeneration, including the Northern Square Mile, North West Leeds Employment Hub, regeneration around Microsoft’s proposed data centre, and supporting real estate focused inward investment .
- Infrastructure led growth at Leeds Station, new rail stations at White Rose, Thorpe Park and Leeds Bradford Airport, and potential mass transit corridors.
- Shaping and delivering future projects, visions and delivery plans to achieve the objectives of the Leeds Economic Vision, Leeds Ambitions and Leeds Affordable Housing Strategy.
About You
You will provide specialist technical and commercial expertise, experience and knowledge from a relevant place orientated professional discipline (Professional accreditation from the Royal Town Planning Institute, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Royal Institute of British Architects or Chartered Institute of Housing are desirable) – but with a flexible mindset to work beyond your core specialist discipline. You could come from a private sector (including consultancy), public sector or registered provider background. You will bring curiosity and passion for place, but rooted by practical skills to make things happen.
These are not capital project management delivery roles nor simply policy or strategy, and you be expected to develop meaningful partnership and delivering through others by utilising a broad range of commercial and technical skills and toolkits. You will understand the Development Sector and key methods to deliver comprehensive regeneration.
You will be externally facing and willing to build your profile and network across the city. As a managerial position, you will be able to drive solutions to complex place related challenges with autonomy and independence, joining the dots beyond disciplines to make things happen.
You will be a pro-active curious commercially minded problem solver, politically astute, committed to getting the best out of people and partnerships. You will be able to work positively and closely with immediate team colleagues and those from across other Council services and partners, to support programme team activities and empower others as required.
You will play a role in supporting and developing the leadership of the service and managing the workloads of the team and have the ability to provide high quality well-being, mentoring and management support for colleagues. You will contribute to a positive team culture.
What We Offer You
We take pride in offering the best employee experience, with benefits including:
- a competitive salary of up to £50,908 and annual leave entitlement plus statutory holidays (26 days rising to 31 days after 5 years’ service)
- membership of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with generous employer contributions
- flexible and hybrid working arrangements subject to service requirements
- a clear career pathway and continuing professional development opportunities
- a range of staff benefits to help you boost your wellbeing and make your money go further
How To Apply
Please upload in
one document no more than
5 sides of A4 (size 12 font), both a CV (up to 3 sides of A4) summarising your career history, achievements, and to include a personal statement (up to 2 sides of A4) outlining your fit for the role in line with the Job Description.
Then, complete the online form for the
supporting statement in no more than 500 words to describe 1) your motivation for applying for this role, 2) your most recent salary and 3) any notice period.
Your application should outline your relevant professional accreditations, technical or commercial expertise and experience.
Read our guidance for further advice.
Please contact Lee Arnell or Stephanie McGourlay if you would like an informal discussion in advance submitting your application. To request a candidate pack, please email Stephanie.Mcgourlay@leeds.gov.uk
Lee Arnell - phone: 0113 3787717 email: lee.arnell@leeds.gov.uk
Stephanie McGourlay - phone: 0113 3782134 email: Stephanie.Mcgourlay@leeds.gov.uk
We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people.
This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.
If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £41,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Ensure you are eligible before applying.
Job Description
Job purpose
Co-ordinate and manage priority workstreams, projects, and programmes within the Place and Regeneration Programmes service, with specific focus on the delivery of regeneration programmes for the city to secure the delivery of complex place and regeneration priorities set out in the Leeds Ambitions, Leeds Economic Vision and Affordable Housing Strategy. Colleagues should work in line with our hybrid working principles and spend regular time in the workplace to support service delivery, meeting the needs of the team and the requirements of their individual role.
Responsibilities With specific focus on managing and co-ordinating major anchor project activity, site specific initiatives and thematic work across spatial geographies, to contribute as directed to housing, culture, economic, heritage and transport/ infrastructure led place & regeneration programmes at priority locations– to achieve major regeneration outcomes including job creation, new inward investment, new housing & affordable housing provision and significant public and private capital investment As directed by the Head of Service, Strategic Leads and or Principal Managers, manage/ undertake / contribute / commission and client commercial and technical activities to secure delivery of regeneration and place programmes including:
- Working collaboratively internally and externally to overcome barriers to growth in Leeds, leveraging convening power to bring together partners and broker delivery solutions between parties based upon knowledge and good practice, building consensus and mediating between conflicting positions where necessary.
- Ensuring connections and alignment between different professional disciplines within and outside the Council to align objectives to achieve priority Council place-based objectives: providing thought leadership and cultivating relationships to shape regeneration delivery.
- Working in partnership with key place agencies including WYCA, Homes England, Historic England and wider Government departments such as MHCLG and DCMS.
- Authoring or appraising funding bids, in line with Treasury Green Book business cases and other funding appraisal methods of funders/ funds.
- Undertaking and or clienting viability assessments.
- Positioning Leeds for funding opportunities, securing funding and negotiating, administering and governing capital grant and or loan programmes, including on infrastructure, heritage, housing, economic development focussed activities.
- Authoring subsidy control assessments.
- Co-ordinating technical work where the Council’s powers may be used, including Compulsory Purchase, Appropriation etc to secure delivery that supports place and regeneration outcomes. Including the intelligent clienting of legal and surveying specialists.
- Producing regeneration visions across spatial areas, including producing or co-ordinating regeneration frameworks and site-specific masterplans or development briefs or Supplementary Plans.
- Supporting the development of Planning Policy by providing specialist advice and expertise to the Local Planning Authority through market analysis.
- Community and stakeholder engagement on place-based plans.
- Close working with major investors, registered providers, and developers to secure the delivery of housing and economic growth including through Key Account Management and management of data/ information of evidence-based development pipelines.
- Informal and formal partnerships to secure place delivery, including formal structures such as Joint Ventures and Memorandum of Understanding.
- Clienting technical teams undertaking land assembly, land disposals to achieve regeneration outcomes or procuring of developer partners.
- Supporting ‘real estate’ focussed inward investments to secure new businesses and organisations to the city
- Promotion of the city to external audiences, including promoting the city at events, international relations etc
- Providing place-based advocacy and evidence to support investment cases into major infrastructure.
- Intelligence gathering, monitoring market trends and analysis or production of local and regional policy.
- Spatial strategy and delivery and developing funding and financing mechanisms to unlock regeneration delivery.
- Preparingtender documents & managingcontracts for, but not limited to, property advice, economic studies, planning and multidisciplinary services, legal advisors and instructing solicitors.
- Applying commercial and financial management techniques to support delivery including budget monitoring and reporting.
- Utilising project management tools and risk management strategies through sound governance methods
- Other technical, commercial and development focussed activities as may be required by the service.
- Continuously build knowledge and professional networks relevant to the delivery of place and regeneration programmes to support service delivery including development markets.
- Maintain effective consultation and communications with staff, community representatives, Councillors, trade unions, partners and other stakeholders, in ways which support open, responsive and accountable government.
- Work responsibly to define and deliver workloads within approved budgets, to defined timescales achieving the required quality and following agreed procurement processes.
- Produce reports up to Executive Board level and produce and provide verbal briefings for senior officers and elected members.
- Support the management of workloads in your area to achieve the service plan in order to deliver Value for Money.
- Assist with the management and achievement of the service plan for your area so that it achieves its corporate and service objectives.
- Work closely cross Council services to secure development and regeneration initiatives and programmes, including clienting of technical specialists.
- Coach and mentor staff within your area and who report to you to assist in the achievement of the Best Council Plan, directorate and service plans. Support culture change and service culture programmes.
- Promote and deliver positive solutions to achieving diversity and equality in all aspects of your service delivery focussing on equality of outcome.
- Contribute to team activities and initiatives as required.
- T he duties outlined are not meant as an exhaustive list and will also comprise any other duties within the spirit of the post commensurate with the job evaluation outcome for this post.
QualificationsRequired: Degree or equivalent qualification.
Desirable: Professional accreditation with one of either the Royal Town Planning Institute, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Royal Institute of British Architects or Chartered Institute of Housing.
Essential Requirements
Candidates will only be shortlisted for interview if they can demonstrate that they meet all the essential requirements.
- Experience and able to manage/ co-ordinate, and successfully deliver a number of regeneration/ place-based outcomes – able to use a range of technical and commercial skills relevant to the responsibilities of the post (set out in the responsibilities bullet 2 above), with directly relevant operational experience managing activity in a related built environment related area such as regeneration, planning, housing delivery, surveying, heritage, design/ architecture, economic development, development funding/ financing, infrastructure or cultural/ community focussed regeneration.
- Experience and knowledge of relevant legislation, guidance, policies and able to interpret and apply them consistently. Including understanding and experience of applying relevant place-based policy and law, and commercial delivery considerations in relation to the successful delivery of place and regeneration initiatives and programmes. Including a clear understanding of market trends and barriers, planning, property development delivery methods, project and development financing, development viability, business case production, and the roles of the public and private sectors.
- Experience and ability to take a lead role in problem solving and risk mitigation initiatives and conducting senior level negotiations on commercial and or technical matters with a range of stakeholders on activities directly relevant to the post.
- Able to, and experience of, gathering a wide range of complex commercial and technical information and accurately entering and retrieving data and information from digital and manual systems – preparing and being able to present reports, information and data to communicate and engage effectively to a wide range of audiences: including to senior officers, Members/ MPs or Senior Clients, Boards, partners and stakeholders.
- Understand local government/ public sector issues and private sector issues relevant for the delivery of place and regeneration programmes and able to apply and interpret knowledge to the successful delivery of place programmes.
- Able to manage and motivate staff following procedure and maintaining accurate records and contributing to staff development and positive team culture through appraisal, mentoring, service planning, coaching and training.
- Able to /and experience of developing constructive working relationships and working in and managing partnership, including being able to build strong professional networks and in professional disciplines in the built environment. In doing so, be able to achieve results in a politically sensitive environment, manage meetings and balance multi-disciplinary/ sector views to influence the views and behaviour of others and resolve conflict between stakeholders.
- Able to work effectively as part of a team and demonstrating organisational and time management skills prioritising your own and managing the team’s work to meet conflicting deadlines in changing circumstances to deliver at pace.
- Knowledge of relevant financial regulations to carry out financial transactions with a range of funders, funding recipients and suppliers, and able to manage and report on budgets in line with corporate procedures and public law.
- Understand responsibilities in terms of Health, Safety, Wellbeing, security, confidentiality and data protection including matters relevant to the delivery of place and regeneration programmes.
- Able to use and experience of the use of information technology e.g. word, spreadsheet, database, email etc.
Essential Behavioural & Other Characteristics
- Understand and embrace Leeds City Council Values and Behaviours and codes of conduct
- Committed to continuous improvement in all areas and work towards delivering the Leeds Ambitions of health and wellbeing, inclusive growth, thriving strong communities and a resilient sustainable city
- Able to understand and observe Leeds City Council policies and procedures.
- Carry out duties having regard to an employee’s responsibility under Health, Safety and Wellbeing
- Participate in appraisal, training and development activities to ensure up, to date knowledge and skills.
- Be aware of and support difference and ensure equality for all working in an anti-discriminatory manner, upholding equality & diversity of Leeds City Council.
- Recognise and appropriately challenge any incidents of racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and any form of abuse, reporting any concerns to the appropriate person
- Flexible and adaptable to change to assist other services as required commensurate to grade.
- The Council has adopted a flexibility protocol, and the role will be expected to work within these parameters.
