We seek to create a global network of micro institutional landlords; a distributed model of stewardship that preserves communities, delivers the housing we need, and returns value and control to the people who have a history of managing the land with care: Farmers.

At Ingot Green, we believe this approach challenges the current system—where developers and large institutional landlords dominate the value chain—and restores ownership and agency to local stewards.

I began working on Ingot Green while studying Rural Enterprise and Land Management at Harper Adams University. At the same time, my family were in the process of selling land with planning permission under an option agreement. Several of my cousins and I agreed that it would be good to take built property on the site over cash and were surprised by the fact that this did not appear to be an option.

Over the following three years, I set out to understand why landowners weren’t being offered more flexible or long-term alternatives—particularly on larger schemes. It quickly became apparent that the high cost and complexity of obtaining planning permission was a major barrier, pushing farmers towards option or promotion agreements that often handed developers a significant discount.

I spent six months researching private REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and JPUTs (Jersey Property Unit Trusts), including attending a tax and trust seminar in Jersey, to better understand how large-scale development projects are financed. The more I learnt, the more I questioned the high cost of producing planning documents—particularly given that these were often the very things being financed in the first instance.

I became convinced that technology could significantly reduce these costs and make planning expertise more accessible. Over the following two years I spent a collective 5 weeks in Silicon valley learning more about the foundational technologies that would make this possible. With my friend Sam, began using generative AI models to produce pre-application letters—documents that seek advice from the local authority and advocate for a specific development, often serving as the first formal step in the planning process.

This work became the foundation of my dissertation: “An Investigation into the Use of Artificial Intelligence in the UK Planning Industry” I interviewed plc housebuilders and planning consultants to better understand their processes as well as large strategic landowners such as Bradford Estates, to understand how they were approaching developments differently.

After finishing university, I continued developing Ingot Green—spending two focused months in London learning to code, which enabled me to build the first version of our Landlord Portal.

Today, our mission remains clear: to equip farmers and landowners with the tools and structures needed to retain ownership, secure planning permission, and build sustainable communities themselves, for the good of all—without having to hand over control to third parties.