One size (doesn’t) fit all by Mark Woodrow COO, Packaged Living

One can consider this range of products in terms of urban intensity - each bringing its own bespoke offer, benefits and challenges: 

❏ Ultra-urban - a growing tenure of co-living buildings in city centres. This is ideal for urban dwellers living a short walk from employment and leisure options. Providing a more accessible price point but with a strongly community focused, management curated offer. Packaged Living has been growing its capability in this area over the last twelve months with initial sites progressing through early delivery.

❏ Urban - multi-family (apartments) providing the more traditional city centre living experience. Community-led buildings with a strong amenity offer and a growing range of demographics. Packaged Living has a portfolio of over 3,000 homes of this type located across the top 30 towns and cities in the UK. 

❏ Fringe Urban - garden style townhouses on the edge of towns/cities catering for more families and those requiring larger homes with more space. This product provides a balance of walkable locations to a mix of amenities but with access to the space and benefits of the countryside beyond. This is perfectly illustrated by Packaged Living’s scheme at Merchant’s Yard, Ipswich – transforming a 
brownfield site into community-led three- and four-bedroom rental homes. 

❏ Sub-urban - single family (houses) outside of town centres across the country. A grown-up rental living option with less service requirements but retaining that professionally managed feel. Packaged Living now has over 1,200 homes of this type across the Midlands and South of England providing flexible housing options within good transport links of major employment areas. 

Packaged Living’s range of rental living options is well represented in one of these fast-growing employment hubs, Milton Keynes. The Almere – opened in 2021 and is now voted the best place to live in the South east by Homeviews. A second 
site overlooking Campbell Park is set to start on site later this year. On the edge of the City we have two Single Family Housing schemes at Whitehouse and Shenley Wood both delivering family homes to rent in 2024. 

By unlocking development in this way and looking at the full range of housing typologies we can help to improve social mobility and productivity, whether that be a young person finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live in the city centre, or a family who wish to move for work within a highly constrained housing market.