Haringey’s former council leader Claire Kober has joined House by Urban Splash as chair of the board.
As an independent director, Kober will lead its modular housing expansion through Urban Splash’s joint venture with Japan’s housebuilder Sekisui House.
The partnership seeks to scale up from 100 to 2,000 homes a year, bringing modular housing to the mainstream market, within six years.
Kober is the managing director of homes at the Pinnacle Group and responsible for a portfolio of 24,000 mixed-tenure homes.
In 2018, she stepped down from Haringey Council amid a conflict over the £4bn Haringey regeneration vehicle, a public/private partnership with Lendlease that would have built several thousand homes across a number of estates.
Kober was at the council for 11 years and was also a previous chair of London Councils.
Urban Splash has also appointed Argent’s former head of construction Mark Shirburne-Davies as director to oversee the development of more than 400 homes at Northstowe, Cambridgeshire.
He was previously chief operating officer at PegasusLife and development and design director for Laing O’Rourke.
Urban Splash Group chairman Tom Bloxham said: “Claire is a strong advocate for change and championing new ideas – something which will help us develop and make our homes accessible to more people – while Mark’s international expertise will help us deliver an impressive new town for Cambridgeshire.”
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