In an exclusive interview with DFT, Shahil explained how there was yet to be detail on how learnings from the Grenfell disaster are acted on a day-to-day basis in the development industry.

Here, Shahil gave the example of a development that completed last year to a high standard, but still did not have its completion certificate with protracted back and forth between regulatory authorities and the fire brigade.

“The BSR (Building Safety Regulator) in effect don’t know what to do, the fire brigade don’t know what to do, we don’t know what they’re asking us for - you have all these sites that are meant to have this additional layer of scrutiny post-Grenfell, but they haven’t worked out the detail of what that scrutiny looks like,” said Shahil.

As a result, the CEO said such delays could be costly for developers and impact their ambition to develop more sites. Despite numerous government claims about cutting red tape and improving efficiency, Shahil was sceptical based on what he was seeing in person.

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“What does this mean practically?” he asked. “Specifically with issues on high rise buildings - the BSR doesn’t want to take liability, the fire brigade don’t want to take liability, the local council don’t want to take liability - it’s all about passing the buck.”

As such, Shahil wants to see greater clarity and direction from the government and was sceptical of the gap between political rhetoric and the reality on the ground.

“I see a lot of sensationalism,” added Shahil. “The reality is it’s very, very difficult out there.”

Despite such challenges, Shahil was confident in the outlook for Pivot Finance and the opportunities it was targeting.

With more of these appearing outside of London - a market he sees as “very difficult” due to affordability considerations - Shahil is keen to tweak the company’s strategy and include other kinds of developments.

“The core strategy is still development finance for developers to develop [residential sites], however with a slight diversification of the book to manage risk and look at adjacent sectors - by this I mean living assets,” said Shahil, referring to later living sites and PBSA schemes.