If there’s an archetypal property developer then Jonathan Smales probably doesn’t fit the mould. A former managing director of Greenpeace, who oversaw the organisation’s rapid growth in size and influence during the 1980s, he was then CEO of the Earth Centre in Doncaster for a decade, before setting up a consultancy to advise on sustainable regeneration and housing. The transition into property development has come after years of frustration with seeing the schemes he was working on stripped of their green credentials through cost cutting.

He grew up just south of Leeds in the coal field communities. This world had a major impact on him: “I just had this sense that there must be another world out there.” He remarks on the despoliation of the mining landscape and the “harsh life experiences” for everyone around him growing up. “I think that gave me a yearning for making a better place. And also a fantastic insight to what a resilient community is like to be among because that’s what they were.”

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