WHO WE ARE
Meet the team behind Oakyard Developments
We have a a team full of experts that have a wealth of experience bringing together a team to deliver quality properties in the North East of England.
GAVIN FRASER
Managing Director
Gavin has worked in the Construction and Development field for over 25 years, holding senior leadership and director positions at Ballast Nedam, Rok Plc and Balfour Beatty. Gavin was National Housing Director for Rok Plc, helping grow the business from £250m to £1bn turnover in 10 years, including £300m per annum of residential projects for the Private Rental and Affordable Housing sectors.
Gavin has performed various roles as a non-executive adviser to Directors at Kier, Macquarie, United Living and Forrest, helping to grow their businesses through the creation of investment grade products in residential and energy sectors.
KEVIN WILLETTS
Housing Director
Kevin was an Executive Director of Development Sales and Procurement at ExtraCare Charitable Trust. He was responsible for the site identification, construction and sales of the largest retirement villages in the UK, delivering a construction value of £285m and a sales income of £336m.
Prior that, Kevin was the Executive Director of Development, Regeneration, Sales and Procurement at WM Housing Group and created the group’s Development Strategy which saw the delivery of 2,512 new homes over a five year period.
STEVE BROWN
Legal Director
Steve graduated from the Medical School of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2002, after a short period of employment he returned to education to read law at the University of Northumbria. He qualified as a barrister and was called to the Bar in 2005. He practised in a variety of areas focusing on litigation and contractual disputes until 2010 when he cross qualified and was admitted to the roll of solicitors of England and Wales.
Steve currently heads the legal department, overseeing the many facets of the business via the in-house legal team and external specialists.
MICHAEL NESBIIT
Commercial Director
Michael has worked within the Construction and Development sectors for 15 years. Qualifying as a Quantity Surveyor whilst working for Tolent Construction, he was responsible for managing cost and delivery of a wide range of projects including, large commercial units, public sector Hospital and School works, high-rise student accommodation and specialist civil engineering works.
He progressed to Commercial Manager at Meldrum Construction and enhanced his skills in a multi-disciplined organisation - Construction, Civils, M&E and Structural Steel before stepping into residential developments throughout Northumberland with Dacre Street Developments.
KEITH MCDOUGALL
Operations Director
Keith has 30 years in the construction and development sectors. He has previous commercial and operational experience of social housing/extra care developments and regeneration projects with Frank Haslam Milan and the Keepmoat Group.
Having extensive experience of leading and driving teams from both a commercial and operational background has given Keith a thorough understanding of the planning and delivery of high quality, efficiently designed, client focussed residential developments.
ROBIN CAIRNS
Operations Director
Robin has been in the housing development construction industry for over 30 years, working for National and Local companies He has a wealth of experience and during his career, he has developed many challenging sites in various locations. He has excellent working relationships with
architects,surveyors, contractors, the HCA and local authorities.
In Robin’s development and construction career he gained a vast amount of experience in the residential, sector, including many new build and redevelopment projects. He has an extensive knowledge of building and development and has successfully developed many schemes from concept to completion with both new build construction and refurbishment and in both the private and public sector on schemes of various sizes.