7.15am: Morning coffee in hand while reading the paper, particularly the times business briefing which is extremely useful for a snapshot of all markets!

8am: First phone call made to our IT consultant as I can’t access the company server! Great start to the day for someone with no patience like me!

8.10am: The dogs giving me puppy eyes to come and sit on the desk with me so he can harass people walking past.

8.20am: Second coffee made (yes I am a coffee addict). White with no sugar, for future reference for anyone.

8.40am: Nearly done finishing of the emails received late last night. About to start looking through the planning applications recently submitted in my area.

9.30am: Quick catch up call with a commercial consultant who is selling a site which he thinks has development potential.

10am: Teams call with my colleagues to discuss the day before and the day ahead.

10.15am: The dog has disrupted an important discussion on the teams call, as the postman he loves so much (not) is approaching the front door, now have to apologise to my director who was halfway through talking!

11am: Team call done and some great ideas were discussed. Feeling highly motivated after it and look forward to working on some commercial sites we have identified as ‘development potential’.

11.15am: Quick glance at the time to check its acceptable to now eat lunch! On a health kick so decided to eat later (gutted wenzels baguettes and Jamaican beef patty aren’t on the menu)!

12noon: Its all hands to the pump! One of my sites has an issue the solicitor has identified on the decision notice and CIL document. After an hour of scanning the documents and liaising with the architects it appears the council have calculated the CIL wrong. The seller of the site is going to sort and get it rectified! Phew!

1pm: Lunch done and managed to get an instruction on a mixed use scheme with planning consent! Pat on the back for me.

1.45pm: Half hour of breathing space to call the enquiries that have emailed in during the morning, these are for 4 plots of land I am marketing jointly with our sister company Sewell & Gardner.

3.30pm: Spent the last 1 hour and 45 mins touching base with my developers. Am I working on anything that could be suitable for one them? Are they selling anything I could help find a buyer on?

4.30pm: Identified some new potential sites, so letters are done and ready to go out!

5.30pm: Back from my run, finally got into the habit of running (some positives from this lockdown!).

6pm: Finished off the last of the emails for the day.

10.30pm: In bed and cant resist the urge to check my emails (bad habit to have I know).

Ben Howard, Land & Development Manager