Southampton: New director joins property consultancy JLL

The Southampton office of leading property consultancy JLL has appointed a new director in its planning and development team.

David Ramsay, who now heads up the planning team, was previously associate and head of planning for the Solent region for Vail Williams in Southampton and Portsmouth.

He said: “My new role at JLL Southampton provides an excellent opportunity for me to work for a major international property consultancy where I can work closely with my colleagues in the development team to drive growth across the planning and development division.

“My aim is to drive business growth in a variety of sectors across the region.”

Michael Green, lead director in the Southampton office of JLL, said: “We are very pleased to welcome David to our growing team. He brings with him many years of expertise in the planning sector.”

Ramsay added that the property market in the region is buoyant, with residential development a key active market, fuelled by a need for housing in many areas.

He said: “The office market is improving, with increased enquiry levels, although it is clear that the introduction of permitted development rights (which allows office-to-residential conversion until May 2016) and the lack of new build or speculative development have continued to reduce the supply of Grade A supply along the Solent corridor over the past couple of years.

“As a result, there is a lack of high-quality office space and the remaining lower quality buildings are being converted to residential as landowners consider the cost of refurbishment to be too high.

“In contrast, the industrial market has seen a limited amount of speculative development with a small number of design and build sites coming through.”