The South West

Jay Ridings is a chartered building surveyor specialising in commercial TDD and development consultancy working for TFT in Bristol, having started his career in London.

Jay sits on the editorial panel for the RICS’ Building Surveying Journal and has been a speaker on Landlord and Tenant matters for RICS.

Jay was a keen volunteer for the London Borough of Camden visiting the elderly in his local neighbourhood before moving to Bristol, where he has carried on his voluntary work by instigating and hosting meetings with local homelessness charities and property professionals to discuss the challenges and opportunities that face the city in a time when homeless is growing.

He is passionate about the role that businesses can play to improve their industry and local communities and how this can create a better workplace for everyone.

Ross is a director, development manager and chartered surveyor for Deeley Freed, having previously worked as a project manager for consultancies and within healthcare organisations including Nuffield Health and the NHS.  In addition, he is part of Bristol City Council’s Bristol Nights Advisory Panel, which supports the city’s night time economy and deals with a number of issues that cross over with LandAid.

Having worked and lived in the centre of Bristol for many years, the issue of youth homelessness has been visible on a daily basis and Ross believes that the property and construction industry holds the key to solving youth homelessness if the available resources, services and support are used to their potential.

Ric has spent the best part of 18 years working in the built environment, primarily as a consulting engineer in multi-disciplinary companies and has been involved in many major landmark developments across the region. In his current role, Ric is the Regional Director for Hydrock’s largest region (South), where he is responsible for business development and raising company profile. He also manages the commercial performance, staff engagement and retention in the region, which consists of our Bristol, Almondsbury, Gloucester and Taunton offices.

Ric is a firm believer in the Hydrock mantra “be a force for good”, and so encourages and facilitates the company efforts on pro bono work, and champions Hydrock’s Day off for Good Causes. He is passionate about giving back, and supporting local communities.

Ric is also a member of Bristol City Council’s Night Time Economy Advisory Panel.

Sophie is an associate architect at Stride Treglown based in the Bristol office.

She specialises in the Education Sector where she leads teams to design, manage, coordinate, and deliver primary and secondary schools across the UK. She has worked extensively with modern methods of construction (MMC) and is passionate about holistic sustainable architecture and equity in design.

Alongside LandAid, Sophie has recently finished her tenure as the RIBA Bristol Bath branch chair and is still active in the local RIBA committee. She also works as an associate lecturer at UWE Bristol her alma mater, where she carries out reviews of student presentations and portfolios.

Sophie is looking forward to supporting the South West regional board for LandAid, using her enthusiasm and network to raise awareness for youth homelessness

Matt has 17 years’ experience in property, finance and asset management, including 8 years in institutional, corporate portfolio management. He has utilised his wealth of knowledge to adhere to a variety of different clientele needs and requirements ensuring value extraction in terms of both capital appreciation and yield, managing in excess of 5000 properties across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Matt has a strong network of third party suppliers from contractors through to inventory clerks, and experienced in pulling various resources together to deliver projects on time and to budget. Matt works closely with Andrews Charitable Trust and supports Bristol charity 1625 Independent People.

Simon is a Director and head of the CBRE Bristol Lease Consultancy business.  He has over 17 years’ experience of working in the commercial property sector, specialising in providing strategic advice to major landlord and occupier clients.

Owain is a Senior Legal Counsel at the Bristol office of Legal & General. Owain has broad experience advising on acquisitions and disposals of key real estate assets and development sites, high value lease transactions and asset management work.

In particular, Owain specialises in real estate finance transactions working for domestic and overseas banks, funds and other institutional investors providing both senior and mezzanine debt.

Tracey is a partner at law firm Osborne Clarke and is based in its Bristol office.

She leads the Real Estate Tax team and works predominately for clients in the Real Estate and Infrastructure sectors including a number of LandAid partners.  She has particular expertise within the living sector including build to rent, Student and later living.

Tracey is also a trustee of a local primary school multi-academy trust and an independent volunteer for Wiltshire council supporting children in care.

Tracey is passionate about equality and supporting young people to be given the best opportunities to have happy and fulfilling lives. She wishes to use her role in businesses to support the great work that LandAid does to help end youth homelessness.

Rupert has been working in the real estate industry for over a decade, now being the lead for Office Agency in the South West for BNP Paribas Real Estate. Working with institutional landlords for their property ownerships in the South West, limiting their voids and seeking to improve the assets value, as well as tenants in actively managing their estate and finding them new premises.

Rupert has always had a strong focus on sustainability within the real estate industry, being a part of the sustainability team in his current role and working closely with UKGBC in his previous role. This passion translates to wanting to play an active role in improving how the real estate industry can interact with the community and local government to improve access to housing for all.