Meet the man running the biggest propco you’ve probably never heard of

When Robin Dobson left Hammerson in 2022 after more than two decades with the property firm he knew he was on the right track joining Network Rail. Not only could he bring his vast knowledge of retail – for much of his tenure at Hammerson, retail was a driver of urban regeneration – but he had the opportunity to showcase one of the country’s biggest but probably most underrated enablers of growth and investment. Or so goes his pitch as he explains how Network Rail Property, the business he now runs, is not just the UK’s largest owner of brownfield land, one of the country’s best-performing shopping centre owners and the nation’s fifth biggest housebuilder, but a force to be reckoned with when it comes to getting Britain building again. His mission at Network Rail Property is to turn the business from a net seller of land into a major developer, delivering tens of thousands of homes, creating valuable partnerships and enabling development up and down the country. Building up Britain The Network Rail Property business is vast. It has more than 2,500 station locations that give it access to more than a billion customers, it has a retail business that reported a 13% growth in sales over the past year and is on track to hit £1bn of sales this year, it has a huge potential commercial development pipeline and, says Dobson, could deliver as many as 50,000 new homes. Yet, no one really understands the scope of the business. Especially not the real estate business. But Dobson and his team are on a mission to change that. A mooted merger with London Continental Railways should create a development company of even more scale, giving the already 450-strong Network Rail Property business access to LCR’s workforce and 25-year track record of being the UK government’s placemaking expert. But, even ahead of that merger, Network Rail Property has started to make a visible impression on the UK landscape. It recently secured McLaren Property and Arlington Real Estate to bring forward the “King’s Cross of the North”, transforming the 45-acre York Central site into mixed-use community providing 2,500 homes and 1m sq ft of offices; has got the go-ahead to transform Bow Goods Yard, the last slice of developable land at London’s Olympic Park, into a major last-mile logistics hub; and this week has taken control of designs for the £1.5bn redevelopment of London’s Liverpool Street station. Previous plans with property group Sellar had faced strong opposition from various conservation bodies, including Historic England and the Victorian Society. The new plans will “respect the station’s unique heritage” but will still include a new office development over the station. For Dobson, it is opportunities like this that make Network Rail Property one of the most exciting property companies in which to work. “From a development and regeneration perspective we own about 130,000 acres outside of central London and about 14,000 acres in Greater London,” says Dobson. “We are the largest owner of brownfield land in the UK. And when you combine that with things like our Places for London partnership within Greater London, you can just see the sort of scale of opportunity.” Growing the network Unlocking development opportunity through partnership is key for Dobson. Alongside the firm’s jv with TfL’s Places for London, he cites Network Rail’s growing partnership with Homes England and its Grainger and Citra Living jv as core drivers of growth. “Over the last three years, we have built a greater array of strategic partnerships and we are on a mission to make sure that we grow those partners and grow what we do and deliver to communities right across the country,” says Dobson. For him, delivering housing will be key for Network Rail. “If you look at the agenda of housing and infrastructure, and delivering and building and regenerating the most sustainable sites around transport hubs today and tomorrow, that is not going away. It is an asset class in its own right now,” says Dobson. “And we are one of the largest contributors to housing regeneration.” He says that over the past five years Network Rail Property has delivered some 17,000 homes, averaging 3,500 homes per annum – a volume Dobson says makes it the fifth-largest housebuilder in the UK. Add in partnerships and that housing delivery number grows to 6,500. “If you add up what we think we could deliver, it throws up some amazing stats,” says Dobson. “Places for London and Network Rail could deliver about 20,000 homes over the next 10 years. “We then have a hand-in-hand working agreement with Homes England, aligning our agendas of need versus our opportunity in land holdings. That could throw up probably another 10,000 homes and, in our own right, we have probably got in the order of about 20,000 homes. So, overall, we think we could deliver more than 50,000 homes across the country.” Dobson’s short-term ambition is to move Network Rail Property from fifth-biggest housebuilder to fourth. And he reckons he is not too far off. “We are a huge enabler of growth and investment,” he adds. “Outside of central government, we must be the largest enabler of infrastructure projects across the country.” For Dobson, repositioning the property business so that outsiders – and insiders within Network Rail – can see the unique power the business has, is core to its success. “This is all about repositioning, properly repositioning Network Rail Property to be a business that is at the forefront of delivery – and delivery across all mixed asset classes,” he says. “It is about showing that we are not averse to taking a risk and that we are enthusiastic about moving at pace and that we are enthusiastic about forming long-term strategic relationships. This is about getting stuff done and about people wanting to work with us. “Our role is to navigate the political planning community spectrum and to make sure that we balance the needs of regeneration and the needs of communities, but also the needs of bringing forward investment into infrastructure.” Future destinations Dobson reckons that over the next decade the property business will deliver a commercial pipeline of some £15bn-£20bn, with projects around many of its London stations. In the next few months, it will submit fresh plans for Liverpool Street station while, in March, it launched a masterplan to turn Waterloo into a St Pancras twin. Network Rail Property wants to practically turn the station upside down, transforming its arches into a new cultural and commercial destination, with passengers moving up to catch their trains. “It is all about unlocking our land, delivering commercial uses to regenerate our stations and the environments and communities around them,” says Dobson. “The other thing I find so extraordinary is how small changes can make a very large difference in terms of what can be delivered.” Until now, Network Rail Property has been quietly going about its business, enabling not just the regeneration of its own land and that of its partners but delivering the infrastructure to allow other businesses to grow, but Dobson is determined not to go quietly about that business anymore. He is keen for everyone to know that the business is the equivalent of a FTSE 100 business, successfully turning over hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Over the past five years, NRP has delivered an income stream of more than £800m, for example. “This is about properly repositioning Network Rail Property as a stand-alone property business. The metrics and the output of this business puts us on a FTSE 100 stage every day of the week,” he says. “And I think we have successfully done that in a short period of time because we have changed what we have been doing. We are not a net seller of land anymore. We are a net deliverer of infrastructure-led projects.” Network Retail Property While much of Network Rail Property’s landholdings will be utilised to deliver much-needed housing across the UK, the business has a successful and valuable retail business throughout its major stations. While some of its listed retail landlords have had a torrid time over recent years, Dobson says its retail business has gone from strength to strength. It delivered some £842m of sales over the past year, a 13% increase on the previous year, and Dobson is confident that it won’t be long before it is delivering £1bn of sales annually. “Over the past five years, we have done £3bn of sales and we are targeting more than £1bn of sales per annum,” he says. “The sales densities we are hitting in the major stations are only bettered by those of the airports.” Dobson says that, as major footfall generators, Network Rail stations are becoming increasingly popular with brands. He says the group has 50 new brands in pop-ups across its stations, has secured All Saints’ first travel store at London Bridge and boasts some major retailers’ most successful stores – M&S Food at Waterloo is the company’s best performer, while Boots’ and Pret a Manger’s best-performing stores are respectively at Liverpool Street and Euston. Images © Network Rail