MF Freeman & their Magic Formula for Growth
The challenges for the housebuilding sector are as substantial as they have ever been, but family firm Freeman Homes is charting a course to growth and creating jobs. Andrew Merrell, founder and lead journalist of The Raike Journal, asked it 'how?' This article first appeared in The Raikes Journal on 7th June 2025.
A conversation with Luke Freeman and Hayley Coombs of Freeman Homes soon makes you realise the scale of the challenges facing the UK house-building sector - and why there is every reason to have hope too.
There is plenty that is not fit for purpose and that stands in the way of the Government’s pledge to build more and faster.
But when our conversation draws to a close this journalist was not just feeling decidedly upbeat but inspired and even just a little in awe.
For ambition reigns at the Forest of Dean-headquartered business.
Despite the immense frustrations with the current situation with S106 bids for affordable housing, the under resourced planning system and not least the recent Government IHT tax policy changes, growth is being cultivated and more jobs are predicted.
But it is those tax changes, announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her Autumn Budget that the conversation focused on first, and with good reason.
We’re not talking about the increases in National Insurance or the minimum wage, it is the new rules around inheritance tax (IHT) that are most troubling Freeman, the second generation to lead a family business.
That business was founded in 1966 by his parents, Mervyn and Jenny Freeman as a plant hire company, with Luke joining in 1996 and founding Freeman Homes in 1999. He’s now chief executive officer of a group of companies (MF Freeman Group) that includes plant hire, contracting, housebuilding and property.
Business relief on IHT currently lets owners pass down qualifying business assets with up to 100 per cent relief, allowing family members to inherit businesses without a hefty tax bill.
From April 2026, the rules are set to change, and Freeman believes they could be devastating, and a bad fit for a Government that says it wants to raise more money by encouraging business growth.
He’s not alone. Neil Davy, chief executive officer of Family Business UK, called the measures “yet another burden heaped on Britain’s 4.8 million family-owned businesses, and removes entirely any incentive for starting or running a family business”.
Davy’s organisation predicts the measures will deliver a £29 billion cut in economic activity and result in 391,000 jobs lost as firms are sold and merged into bigger corporations.
“These changes effectively seize 20 percent of the capital of private trading companies, saddling them with tax bills that, in most circumstances, cannot be met without selling the underlying business,” he said.
“This change will see a steady succession of family business sold or their underlying assets broken up to satisfy these ill-thought-out policy changes.”
Freeman is under no illusions that the Government should be lobbied hard, arguing that a disappearance of family firms will impact jobs, local economies, innovation, the variety of homes built in sectors, and destroy an otherwise solid tax-paying sector in the process.
“It is like biting the hand that feeds you. Many of these firms, like ours, are in it for the long term. This makes them vulnerable to thoughts of a sell-out to private equity firms.
“Such businesses don’t generally look long-term. Family firms are often respected, profitable businesses and provide stable revenue for the Government too,” said Freeman.
Despite the conversation opener, Freeman is otherwise upbeat - and goes on to explain why his company remains resilient when the sector generally is in decline, and he name-checks the firm that has helped Freeman Homes develop the business acumen that is helping drive it not just survive, but thrive.
“We will be alright, because we will become more efficient,” he adds.
Financial information specialist S&P Global has just published figures showing construction activity decreased for the fourth consecutive month, blaming “business uncertainty” for delaying decision-making on new projects.
“The latest survey indicated further declines in total order books and cutbacks to staffing numbers,” S&P Global said.
In fact, the boss of Freeman Homes thinks that it will be better than just “alright”. He’s predicting growth and significant job creation for the Gloucestershire business.
Coombs, the firm’s sales and operations director, said that confidence came from having schemes underway and in the pipeline.
“We have three projects on the go at the moment. One at Alderton, Credenhill and one at Fownhope. These developments are between 10 and 67 homes,” said Coombs.
Forty-eight of those are at Alderton, north of Cheltenham, and the others at the Herefordshire developments.
The former will offer zero carbon living, and the latter sustainable developments with air source heating, solar panels, energy-efficient and water-saving features, as well as Project EV electric car charging points.
“We generally concentrate on homes for the fifty-somethings, those looking for somewhere with a little more room, but not necessarily family homes. We do all sorts of other homes too. Developments are usually mixed,” said Coombs.
It’s a far cry from when she jumped ship from a career as a corporate lawyer in a Cardiff law firm to join Freeman Homes, which at the time was a relatively small firm.
“We have always been a small team. Back then we did two to three schemes a year. We still only do two to three schemes a year. But we have grown in terms of sales volumes,” said Freeman.
“At any given time we might have been doing three to four projects. The difference is the projects were a different size. Rather than six, seven, eight, nine homes we might be doing 50 at a time, and the size of the business has grown as a result.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge, and one that’s impacting on the schemes above - are issues around the 106 agreements and suitable partners to allow them to deliver the affordable homes element of schemes.
A year ago stories were already running in the industry press about the knock-on effects.
Building.co.uk reported in August 2024 how housing associations were ceasing bidding to buy section 106 homes – the ones that developers had to include to ensure every scheme had an ‘affordable’ element.
The “increasingly important mechanism” for funding and providing new affordable homes, was declared by some to be “broken”, with the result being a drop-off in affordable homes being built and major delays to schemes.
Up until a year before almost half of all affordable homes in the UK were delivered in this way. And that’s not all.
“There is a shortage of liquidity/finance. Finding a housing association that can partner to deliver that element is very difficult,” said Freeman.
“Plus, the housing market itself does not deliver good enough returns currently.”
After all that, you would expect the deeper into the business you go the more strained it would seem, but the control room is calm, the strategy clear and the morale upbeat, and both Freeman and Coombs reveal why – and what has helped give it such resilience.
Freeman was one of the first to enrol in a school of leadership development that has since grown to become a considerable catalyst for growth for countless firms in the UK and beyond - Gloucestershire-based QuoLux™.
Coombs too has passed through its ranks, and both now hold MBAs.
“Going back some years now, when Business Link existed, I met with Suzanne Hall Gibbins and Stewart Barnes,” recalls Freeman, explaining where it all began.
“A little while later Stewart contacted me and said he was looking to launch a leadership development programme and told me all about it.
“I said I was actually thinking of going to Cranfield (university – perhaps the foremost school of business in the UK), but when he told me about the content of what he was looking to do and how it would work I was sold. Subsequently, I have completed LEAD™, GOLD™ and GAIN™.
“The validation of qualifications for these programmes started at Lancaster but then shifted to the University of Gloucestershire, which is an excellent business school.
“Since then we’ve gone on to embed the QuoLux™ leadership programmes across the company,” said Freeman.
Coombs added: “We have three people on LEADlight, two on LEAD™ and one on GOLD™ currently. We have also had almost 30 of our people through a bespoke How-To leadership programme that QuoLux™ has created for us.”
LEADlight is a six-month programme for ‘middle and junior managers’, LEAD™ is the ten-month long leadership and business development programme and GOLD™ is the twelve-month long programme that focuses particularly on strategy, business planning and governance. The How-To e-learning programme give everyone an easy accessible digital library.
“The investment in our people has helped us to develop our culture, a shared language and purpose, and yes, it’s helped retain and recruit too,” explained Freeman.
The firm has also invested at board level, appointing Stewart Barnes, QuoLux™ CEO, as non-executive director since 2013.
Barnes said: “It’s been wonderful seeing first-hand how Luke, Hayley and the business have grown massively over the last decade and there is much potential for further good growth.”
Echoes of the ‘focus’ it’s helped them both bring to the business are evident everywhere.
“We have been working hard on our sustainability,” said Freeman.
“I know a lot of people think that is a lost cause; that it is too expensive; that it can’t be done.
“I think the construction sector and its materials account for about 40 per cent of the carbon footprint, or something like that.
“But while that is a big challenge, one you could simply say is ‘too big to even think about’, you can look at it another way and see a big opportunity.
“We see huge gains to be had here and opportunity to reposition ourselves and win against some much bigger businesses.
“We are a regional housebuilder. We can create a circular economy. We buy our materials locally, we employ local people, we benefit the local economy in everything we do.
“If we can stress the carbon benefits of that, customers like it. They see value in that and that benefits everyone – from our suppliers, the local economy, our staff and those who buy their homes from us.
“We can get carbon credits for all that. It could also give us access to cheaper finance. In short, it gives us a competitive advantage and allows us to compete with national housebuilders.
“As I said, the bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity.”
Does he think the Government will unblock the issues around Section 106, provide enough resources to speed up planning as it promises, and deliver on its target of an extra 1.5 million new homes by 2029?
They’re both enthusiastically in favour of that, but neither are holding their breath. They’re focusing instead on what they can influence, and despite the issues outlined above, its strategy is working.
“We currently employ just over 100 staff,” said Freeman. “We’re going to be looking for another 30 to 40 staff in the near future. We have big projects in the pipeline.
“That’s groundworkers, machine drivers, lorry drivers, construction operatives, machine operators, labourers and plant operators.”
Freeman added: “Some businesses will be looking to sell and to get out as a result of Government policies.
“We’re a proud family business. We want people to know when they work for us or with us we’re in it for the long term.”
If you'd like more information about our LEAD™, GOLD™, GAIN™, LEADlight and How-To programmes that Luke and Hayley talked about, please contact us here.
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