St. Modwen Properties plc is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-based property investment and development business specialising in the regeneration and remediation of brownfield land and urban environments. It is headquartered in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 and owns a portfolio of over 180 property investment and development sites across the UK.

History

The business was founded by Stan Clarke and Jim Leavesley in 1966 as a property development business called Clarke St. Modwen. In 1986 the management reversed the business into Redman Heenan International plc, a listed former engineering concern that had become a shell company. At that time the name was changed to St. Modwen Properties plc. In the 1980s the company developed the Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival

Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival

The Stoke-on-Trent National Garden Festival was the second of Britain's National Garden Festivals. It was held in the city from 1 May to 26 October 1986, and was opened by the Queen. Preparation of the site involved the reclamation of land formerly occupied by the Shelton Bar steelworks , about...

 site.

More recently the company has taken ownership of large former industrial sites such as the former MG Rover site at Longbridge

Longbridge

Longbridge is an area of Birmingham, England. For local government purposes it is a ward within the district of Northfield.Since 1905, the area has been dominated by the Longbridge plant, which produced Austin, Nash Metropolitan, Morris, British Leyland, and most recently MG Rover cars...

. Other sites in St. Modwen's development portfolio include the brownfield

Brownfield land

Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. Cf. Waste...

 reclamation site at Llanwern

Llanwern

Llanwern is an electoral ward and community in the urban-rural fringe of the City of Newport, South Wales. Llanwern ward is bounded by the M4 and Langstone to the north, Ringland, Liswerry and the River Usk to the west, the River Severn to the south and the city boundary to the east...

 and the town centre sites at Edmonton

Edmonton, London

Edmonton is an area in the east of the London Borough of Enfield, England, north-north-east of Charing Cross. It has a long history as a settlement distinct from Enfield.-Location:...

, Farnborough

Farnborough, Hampshire

-History:Name changes: Ferneberga ; Farnburghe, Farenberg ; Farnborowe, Fremborough, Fameborough .Tower Hill, Cove: There is substantial evidence...

 and Wembley Central

Wembley Central

Wembley Central is an electoral ward of the London Borough of Brent. It was expanded in 2002 to include part of the Barham ward, which was abolished....

 as well as the Great Homer Street site in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 and the Melton Park site in Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

.

Operations

The company has a long-standing and consistent strategy: to add value to the properties it controls through remediation, progressing through the planning system, asset management, development and delivery by its centralised and regional teams.

St. Modwen’s business strategy has evolved to ensure that its longer-term development activities are underpinned by a recurring income stream from its portfolio of income producing, secondary assets.
With a land bank of over 5,700 acres, the Company has three main areas of focus to the business:
- Income producing investments (50% by value of the portfolio)
- Residential Land (38% by value of the portfolio)
- Commercial Land (12% by value of the portfolio).

Criticism

The land at the former MG Rover Longbridge site was obtained by St Modwen Properties at a fraction of the actual value after the company paid a £100,000 commission to a firm run by an associate of the Phoenix four. This commission was later described as a "bribe" by inspectors looking into the collapse of MG Rover. St. Modwen firmly dismisses this assertion.