Dr Richard Fordham, Chairman, Fordham Research

Richard graduated in the mid 1960’s and then spent a year in Canada, returning to do a doctorate in Cambridge. He then joined the staff of the University until the mid-1970’s when he became a lecturer at what is now Oxford Brookes University. He set up Fordham Research in the mid-1980’s and has run it ever since then.

During his first decade of work he published a wide range of articles on economic issues, focussing especially upon new airport economics (the ‘Third London Airport’ was then a big issue) and also a monograph on urban land use. Later he became involved in the economics of planning, specialising in viability analysis to support negotiations between developers and local authorities (focussed on ‘planning gain’).

In the 1990’s his work moved towards affordable housing, as that had become a major practical issue, and was involved in developing much of the technology now used in Government Guidance on assessment of housing need (he was the lead author of the book ‘Housing Need and the need for housing’ Ashgate 1998, which the Fordham team co-wrote). In the present century his work has moved on towards analysing the whole housing market for which he has developed a wide range of technical analyses.

Through the development of Government policy to include all sectors of the market in housing and planning policy evolution, Fordham Research has begun to consult more with the private sector (house builders in particular) in order to prepare more effective evidence bases for policy. The particular contribution of the firm has been that, although a private sector body, it has carried out a good deal of basic research into its fields of work
Over the past 20 years he has built up a strong team at Fordham Research whose quality of work in housing and planning has achieved wide renown for its quality and depth.