The Team
Simon Mitchell
Simon hasworked in housing since the late 1980s, is a fellow of the Chartered Instituteof Housing and has worked for both the private and public sectors in theprovision and negotiation of affordable housing. He has a Post Graduate Diploma in Housingfrom the London School of Economics and has extensive experience of housingmanagement and development. He hasworked in senior positions with large and small housing associations working onboth a local, sub-regional and regional basis.
Since 1999 hehas been working as a consultant, initially as Director of his own companyworking with Registered Social Landlords and the private sector and then with alarge housing and planning consultancy as Director. He has particularly been involved withachieving affordable housing through the planning system and has become anAssociate of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He has attended numerousdevelopment plan hearings as an expert witness and has given expertprofessional evidence at planning appeals.
Among Simon’sskills is his expertise in developing assessment models for developmentappraisals and long term financial assessment of housing proposals as well assite and district wide viability. He hasdeveloped assessment models for both private developers and local authoritiesthat have been used in negotiations for a range of sites including largestrategic locations and smaller sites for specific needs. He has also assessed long term financialappraisals of rental and ownership schemes and has sophisticated modellingskills that he applies to assess risk and calculate potential return based ondifferent economic scenarios.
He is a memberof the RTPI/CIH Housing Network and has been on the Housing Task Group whichhas recently considered the future of achieving housing (and affordablehousing) through the planning system. Hehas spoken at conferences (including recently in Canada) and organised trainingsessions.
Prior tojoining the arc4 team Simon has initiated and managed a number of localauthority appointments including Darlington where he worked on the viability ofaffordable housing on residential sites and developed a methodology for theassessment of non residential sites. Hehas supported his own methodology at examination in public for viabilitystudies including at Wokingham and South Kesteven. He has also worked on public sectorappointments in Teignbridge, Fareham, Waveney, WestDevon, South Kesteven and the London Commuter Belt (sub regional study onbehalf of five local authorities), Bradford among others. He was also a member of a multinational teamthat secured worked on a contract to consider the provision of affordablehousing in Abu Dhabi.
Simon has a thorough understanding ofhousing including, rental and homeownership as well as housing for specificneeds. He has used his analytical andmodelling skills to make short and long term assessments for presentation toRSL committees and to local authority officers.