Richard joins from Octopus Real Estate, where he held a business development role focused on providing stretched senior debt finance for regional property developers across London, the South East and the South West.

Richard has also previously served at Triodos Bank, Unity Trust Bank, Clydesdale Bank and Barclays.

In his new role, he will focus on nationwide residential development finance deals where the debt requirement is £2m–10m.

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Parik Chandra, head of residential development finance at Downing, said: “We are very pleased to be adding further expertise to our expanding property finance team.

“Richard has 18-plus years of experience in the sector and over 30 years of banking experience overall.”

Downing Development Finance has committed loans of over £80m since it was established in 2017.

This includes facilitating the development of over 430 residential units across the UK.

Parik added: “While the market remains challenging due to ongoing political uncertainty and natural cyclicality, we believe there are still good deals out there.

“Our pipeline remains strong and we are continuing to expand our network and support experienced developers.”