Graham Smith 
Director
“Graham Smith is a Chartered Surveyor, joined Marchday in 1992 and became a Director in 1995. Graham juggles Family, work, gliding, cycling, golf and… juggles.”
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Recent Media
Graham Smith
March 28th, 2011 - Marchday go Mad in Malmo!
John and Tim have just returned from an inspirational trip to Malmo in Sweden where they visited some remarkable housing schemes. John explains;
The trip was arranged by David Birkbeck of Design for Homes. We are about to team up with a development partner at Lingfield Point, Darlington and start building the first new homes there. We wanted to see the very best examples of new housing in Europe before the design for phase 1 was finalised.
David showed us some fantastic low energy schemes using district heating systems, solar thermal and PV but we were most interested in the layouts of these new communities. I was inspired by the mixed scale of these developments with small single storey homes alongside apartment buildings. The designers had created intimate spaces between buildings, often incorporating water and reed beds where children can play safely. People take priority over the car in Sweden and the shared surfaces really work.
We’ll be making sure the ideas and lessons learned from the trip are brought back to Lingfield Point to make the new homes there some of the most remarkable in the UK.
February 14th, 2011 - Marchday Laps it up!
Marchday fell in love with cycling a long time ago now and since then the passion has not waned one little bit. In fact Priyen has just about had enough of the cycling talk on the train going to and from Darlington.
The real surprise is that this new found passion has maintained a place even in the cold dark winter months…. introducing @thelingfieldlap.
Every tuesday night at 17:45 the peleton sets off to complete as many laps of the Lingfield Point measured mile as they can before it gets too cold or they get too hungry! These winter miles will be invaluable when the clocks go forward and we are able to ride out the the beautiful dales. They also make the inevitable curry taste so much better!
If you are a cyclist of whatever level and are keen to get fit for the summer come along to the Home Office at Lingfield Point and join us. Updates are sent out on twitter (@thelingfieldlap) prior to each session.
So, come on – you know you want too!
Posted in General, Graham Smith, John Orchard, Lingfield Point, Tim Stephen Tagged cyclingmad, thelingfieldlap, tuesdaynightcyclingdarlington +January 5th, 2011 - New Homes at Lingfield Point!
We are often asked when the first new homes at Lingfield Point will be built. Well, we’re delighted to tell you that we are very close to choosing our residential development partner and that new homes will be started at Lingfield Point within a year.
We’ve spoken to many potential partners and despite the general gloom hanging over the residential market have found them all keen to build.
It is essential that we find a partner who’s thinking was aligned with our own in terms of design and commitment to the sustainable mixed community.
We’re close to doing that and will be unveiling our new partner shortly. Watch this space!
Posted in General, Graham Smith, John Orchard, Lingfield Point, Tim Stephen Tagged Art, community, ecohomes, newhomes, Regeneration, sustainability +December 20th, 2010 - Wishing you a very festive Yule!
Marchday wish you a fun filled Christmas! Have a great break and we all look forward to seeing you next year!
Posted in General, Graham Smith, Jenny Carr, John Orchard, Priyen Gudka, Sue Richmond, Tim Stephen Tagged marchdaychristmasfun, Merrychristmas +November 13th, 2009 - On Your Bike!
Marchday are now signed up to the government’s cycle to work scheme. This is a tax break scheme designed to encourage employees to cycle to work.
The thinking being that as well as cutting car travel and carbon emissions it will make us fitter, healthier and happier.
We might exclude Tim, he is productive enough, (another baby on the way) and is always too damn cheerful anyway.
Next time you see us we will all be leaner and fitter…………… apart from Tim of course!
October 21st, 2009 - Waste to Energy, a Waste of Energy?
Waste to Energy, a Waste of energy?
We have had some fascinating discussions recently with experts and providers in the fields of waste to energy, biomass energy, CHP and district heating systems.
A big thank you to everyone that we have spoken with.
All of the discussions are focused mainly but not exclusively, on our Masterplan implementation at Lingfield point Darlington.
It is always great to be learning something new but when there are direct and potentially profitable applications for our mainstream business it is even more exciting.
Could we turn New Lodge, Windsor into a 150 year old grade 2* listed zero carbon building or retro fit non carbon based CHP to award winning regeneration projects at Lingfield?
Maybe we can!
If we can do so and make the projects more profitable at the same time, even better!
September 4th, 2009 - Are we Buyers at the moment?
I suppose the honest answer to that is “maybe”
Cash flow is all important at the moment so we whatever we buy it would need to be income producing… some ideas:
Problem retail or potential retail
Perhaps a poorly let or poorly configured retail unit, parade or small centre. Something which by active management and physical restructuring could be improved? Lot size probably £5m to £10m, potential for improvement would be more important than running yield but there would need to be income. Where?………..It would need to be a decent population centre with Best Zone A values north of £100 ITZA
Country House Offices
If you know New Lodge, (if you don’t come and see it), you will understand our Monticello concept. Briefly it is to take a large attractive country house office HQ building, flood it with IT and comms turning the building into an efficient and flexible “plug and play” building. The model is then to create a number of small traditional lettings on 3 yr leases but to encourage and assist customers to expand and contract within the building.The emphasis is on customer focus. We get income resilience by the number of lettings, and added value from the premium rents which result from the high quality surroundings in which our customers work.
If the building has land for expansion all the better.
In truth we probably wouldn’t fancy buying a vacant building on spec in this climate but an income producing Country House office investment with potential to become a Monticello project in improved economic times might well get us interested. It would need to be at least 20,000 ft2 of net office space preferably 30,000 ft2. Anything less doesn’t work. It would also need to be within the catchment of a decent office population.
Industrial
Large, old and tired is probably what we are looking for but importantly there would need to be a story, change of use, break up etc.
If you are familiar with Lingfield Point you will be aware of our active management approach and a developing expertise in regeneration. We get stuck into projects and prefer things which have the critical mass to justify our management time.
At Lingfield we purchased 2,000,000 ft2 on 107 acres. We have demolished a fair chunk of it, converted a fair chunk to modern large floor plate air conditioned offices and have recently achieved consent for a master plan to provide over 1200 eco homes and an additional 300,000 ft2 of offices.
We now have the green light to produce a genuine mixed use eco community.
We have learnt a lot of lessons along the way and developed a whole range of new skills which we would love to be able to apply to other projects with similar potential. There won’t be many properties like Lingfield Point out there but if you are aware of such opportunities we would love to know about them.
