Construction
2015: No.11 - £475m
2014: No.12= - £450m

Tony Gallagher, like many on our Rich List, is benefiting from increases in the value of land banks as the property market recovers. Through his Gallagher Estates and Gallagher Developments companies, he has spent more than three decades accumulating land and property assets ranging from retail parks, housing plots and industrial sites.

The result is a vast land bank under development, with planning consent or as an investment. His companies own more than 35,000 house-building plots throughout the UK, as well as a large retail park investment portfolio.

These, combined with substantial cash resources and no borrowings, saw Tony Gallagher and his Warwick-based company get through the downturn in better shape than many in the construction business.

Valuable land and property assets in the UK and Europe mean that 63-year-old Gallagher is able to buy, develop and sell when the market is right. While he has been selling in recent years, he still has a retail park portfolio of nearly three million sq ft spread across sites in England, Scotland and Wales.

The two divisions of Tony Gallagher’s company are developing a wide range of business, retail and residential projects. Gallagher Estates and Gallagher Developments are involved in schemes across the UK and the company has worked with more than 50 local authorities on development and regeneration projects. The company describes itself as a “master developer” and a “place maker”, assembling land and building new communities in a sustainable way.

Urban regeneration projects are under way in Manchester, Northampton and Warwick, to name but a few, while urban extension schemes are being developed in Cambridge, Bristol and Milton Keynes.

In Northampton, a mixed-use urban village has been built near the centre of the town on the 50-acre site of a former power station. Another flagship development from Gallagher Developments is the Warwick Gates Business Park which offers business properties and offices of all sizes, complete with lake and tree-lined boulevards. His Gallagher Estates has built not one but two sustainable new towns; one in Wixams, Bedfordshire, and one in Northstowe, Cambridge.

These two huge projects form just part of the portfolio of developments across the country for Tony Gallagher. He has spade-ready residential plots in Ashby and Birmingham, while his Gallagher Developments has more than six million square feet of land with commercial development planning consent.

Gallagher UK continues to be one of the most successful privately owned commercial and residential property development and investment companies in the UK. Tony Gallagher is owner and chairman.