Gro Property Investment & Management Limited, (GPIM) is a business being introduced primarily based within the town of Great Yarmouth. The company will develop, maintain and sell property within the town and surrounding areas in Norfolk as time passes.
Most people who know or have visited Great Yarmouth would say it’s a rather run down town which needs an injection of creative ideas to bring the town back to a greater standard. There are currently some good projects being delivered by the council and other third parties, mainly renovations of graded buildings or relocating areas of council services to produce footfall in targeted areas. These areas mainly revolve around two parts of the town. The first is to reintroduce degrading buildings along Great Yarmouth seafront so for example, the town replaced the swimming centre with a brand new one and the Victorian building, the winter gardens is currently going through funding rounds, planning and so on, to bring it back into use. The second area is the Great Yarmouth market area, the council completed the construction of a new market place structure for stall renters and the relocation of the current library is moving to the old Palmers retail store.
Completing the above projects gives new life to old buildings and areas of the town, in the two main areas which creates a large income for the town; this may be by gaining more tourism coming to visit or bringing local custom back into the town which was lost to other areas like Norwich. However, relying on the council and/or third party grants and loans can only go so far. I believe another way for the town to generate prosperity for its citizens is to gain private sector businesses to help fund the regeneration. This can work in many forms which don’t always have to come down to private funding giveaways.
A very much needed area for targeted regeneration is housing in the town and surrounding areas and I see this as an opportunity, which has not been seen to its fullest potential. I understand, by reading Great Yarmouth Borough Council’s website, it shows some steps the council is suggesting to try and put homes back into use, mainly being reporting empty properties, housing investors and home owner options. I, unfortunately see these as small scale options because they rely on, either owners to sell/refurbish, which will most inevitably come to money, value of costs to refurbish or property value. Housing is one thing which holds great value and people would more likely hold on to property, than lose capital from a sale or refurbishment costs and so on. Investors will only take on property if there is money to make from the venture after refurbishment and sale costs. Rentable properties are a good profitable venture, but it’s a long term investment which, not everybody wants to enter in to. I have also noticed the council was looking to create a social letting scheme in 2023, to gain properties from private landlords. Unfortunately, this is a short term solution to a long term issue and only redirects costs for the council from hotel/BnB’s to private landlords.
With the proposal outlined below, I would like to create another way to regenerate the housing stock within the area, and I’d offer the opportunity to the Council to be a part of it. This is where I would like to introduce my proposal. I am looking for funding to introduce a new business to the Great Yarmouth area.
Proposal
Part One-Year One to Five
As a start-up business I’m looking for funding to create a property regeneration business. What this basically means, is to purchase building/s or houses which need renovation/conversion and to sell back on the open market to generate profits. The revenue will continuously be invested back into more property areas to create a revolving door of regenerated housing which is lacking in the area. In order to deliver the above, it’s clear to have a good team who can deliver the desired results. However, I want to help younger people to gain experience and skills within the housing areas and therefore, I will look to gain newly trained traders to gain employment with me. Further to this, I will look at linking up with a local college to take trainees who would like to gain work experience. By doing this my hope is it will give people the opportunity to apply for jobs with actual real life work experience and that could be with me or with other employers.
There are buildings which lay empty in Great Yarmouth and can be reinstated for people to buy and/or rent. It’s my initial plan to utilise those properties to create the revenue for the second part of my overall plan. With empty shops, pubs or old council buildings lying empty for years, in areas which are no longer suited, they are being wasted and with the public crying out for more housing why should we not be reusing/converting these buildings to more suitable housing stocks. Although in some respects it’s needed in some areas, why are we taking plots of land and building loads of new homes when we have places sitting empty as it is. So therefore, it’s not just taking empty buildings, but to take existing empty land within the town and to utilise those plots, reducing the need to take large amounts of outer town land for new buildings.
Part Two-Year Six to Ten
After establishing the business and gaining a form of stability producing continued success and profitability with the above plan. I will be looking to step further into developing more distressed buildings. This basically means purchasing graded buildings within Great Yarmouth and developing them into useable properties. Having such a large stock of history rich buildings that have some lovely old features in the town, has actually given the town a disadvantage and this is because without the investment for the maintenance of them, we now have all these graded buildings languishing in disrepair. These buildings can be converted/ regenerated into suitable housing, offices and so on. Also, as stated above whilst these buildings sit empty, they generate more refurbishment costs. This is another reason why they sit abandoned because they would cost large amounts of cash to fix and they wouldn’t create large sale amounts on the open market for the average property investor. However, my idea is to renovate and sell, as well as rent if circumstances permit. Properties can actually create higher returns by changing the uses of the buildings for example, converting a commercial building into five apartments could return more profit than trying to resell as a commercial property.
Part Three-Year Eleven to fifteen
As part of my third plan to progress I’ll be looking to step into the retail area of Great Yarmouth. As you walk around the town centre, currently there is a vast amount of shops which lay empty and some areas would be better suited in having a change of use into housing. They have sat empty, decaying for years mainly because they are too expensive to rent for business use. So firstly, is to establish areas for change of use which can give more housing options. Secondly, the town centre is looking more and more unsustainable with its current shopping offerings. Retail businesses are not interested in coming to the town because it offers little in retail space and the space which is offered is falling apart. This may be buildings which cost too much to refurbish because of asbestos or buildings leaking and so on. Retail shop owners do not want to invest in their own properties, they want the renters to foot the bill whilst they gain the rewards but, that is some reasons why these shops lay unrented.
Because of the above I would like to deliver a Spanish element to this town. This means to basically create an old town, new town. I envisage purchasing undervalued industrial space along the south key of Great Yarmouth and converting current and building new areas for the use of creating a new retail park. This would primarily be a rental form of income for the business, but could give purchase options to retailers. Once the business starts establishing this part of the plan, it can then carry on growing to introduce further areas to the retail park and eventually creating a new town.
With the recently new third river crossing built, the southern area of the town now has a great opportunity for growth. The access it brings for shoppers, tourists, deliveries and so on makes this a far more desirable area for retail potential. With Great Yarmouth being a seaside tourist town, it needs to have thriving retail centres with plenty of shopping options. Currently there is very little other than a few clothing shops, charity shops, pound shops and so on. We want people to visit our town and see things they haven’t got in their own towns and to buy/spend money in the town. If we can achieve the above it will also give the current town the ability and, desire to develop, because it will bring in more revenue to the council, population via jobs and if they are as keen as they say they are in transforming the current town, I would think they would support this business.
Community Programmes & Business Funding
I touched on this a little in part one where I said I’d like to introduce ways to give back to the community. I have several ideas to start with and there’s always the ability to open up more options as the business grows, but for now my current options are as follows. I would like to create a way of having the business run with a skeleton workforce, which is firstly based around working to achieve the business goals but, for those members to be supervisory figures for students on work experience. I would look at linking up with local colleges to offer places for young people to come into the business during their college programmes and gain experience in the workforce. This would consist of mainly traders but, is not limited to that area, because the business would also have roles available within administration, purchasing, project management and so on. With a broad range of areas for younger people to come in, it will give a great first step for the business to give back.
I would like to introduce a community programme to gather people who are able to spare their time to help locate and change areas of the community for the better. This may just be simple tasks like painting and decorating exterior buildings or more complex tasks where some construction is needed. Either way, I would have this project funded primarily from the business but, I would seek to also gain external funding as well. As this program grows I’d like to introduce further volunteering programs in other areas so the business can give back to the community in other ways and areas.
As the business grows and becomes financially stable and profitable, I’d like to introduce a funding program of grants and/or loans for young people to apply for. These grants and loans will be available for business start-up ventures. I would give people the choice for either option. I know first-hand how hard it is to gain funding for business ideas or projects from banks or other financial institutions, so giving people an option outside of those areas of finance will hopefully give young people a better chance to succeed.
Conclusion
As you’ll see, I’m looking to gain seed funding to start the process of initiating my business. It can be seen as a high amount; however my ideal platform would be to have a couple of starting ideas to choose from and unfortunately any option in the property market doesn’t come cheap. The first option would be to purchase five properties to be renovated and resold on the open market. The second option is to purchase an area of disused land which could be developed into housing and sold on the open market. The funding I’m seeking is the ideal amount I’d like to acquire although, the options can be scaled down to accommodate the event of lesser funds gained by acquiring less and prolonging turnaround time. There is also the opportunity of gaining properties and services at a lower than expected price which would alleviate the pressure on budgets.
The fundamental idea of my business is to create a profitable business from its endeavours, but it’s based around more than just that, its goal is to help turn a dying town into a thriving town. I have a clear vision on how to achieve my goals and create a successful business. I would also think if this is shown to succeed and be profitable, then I can’t see why it can’t be adopted to other towns with the same issues as Great Yarmouth.