It has been a big year for CODA as we have moved our office into the heart of the city centre from Kelham Island, where we have always been since moving to Sheffield in 2006, so this was quite a big move for us. Now all our team are on one floor, allowing for a much more collaborative way of working and we’re seeing the benefits already. We’ve had a great response from clients and we’re enjoying being in the heart of the action with so much new and positive development taking place in the city centre.
I’m very proud of our team and the way they have risen to the challenges of the past year. We’ve had a number of successes including two team members passing their part three exams to become fully qualified chartered architects, while another has become an accredited Passive House consultant.
Recently we secured successful planning consent on a net zero carbon-ready building in the city centre after a long and very contentious planning process which I was delighted about. To top it off my fellow director and business partner, Abel Hinchliffe, has been shortlisted in the Insider Yorkshire Young Professionals Awards for Young Property Professional of the Year. So, we are having a very positive end to the year!
That’s not to say 2022 hasn’t been a challenging year in our industry. Rising inflation and build costs have raised significant issues on some projects that were moving forward onto site. Despite these challenges, we have very strong and trusting relationships with our clients and stakeholders and are working proactively with them to find solutions.
Our enquiries are high, we are very busy in planning, and we are seeing many of our projects make positive progress towards heading to site as well as a significant pipeline of potential work. We are focused on doing everything we can to help our clients secure successful planning consents and deliver their projects on-site.
I am passionate about the work we are doing to help make Sheffield and South Yorkshire a more successful place to be, from our many city-living schemes and the work we are doing at Stocksbridge, Waverley and elsewhere to help improve communities and deliver more homes in a housing crisis. You can expect to hear me talking a lot more about this and banging the drum for the region in 2023!
Despite the doom and gloom in the news, there is a lot to be positive about in Sheffield and I am very much looking forward to what 2023 will bring.