The excitement of property development for me is that you never know where an opportunity might present itself.

One of my most unexpected projects came off the back of a chance meeting with a very charming young lady whom I met at Annabelle’s in Berkeley Square. Having hit it off we decided to keep in touch and a couple of days later we had planned to go for lunch; incidentally it had come up in conversation that this lady was planning on selling her house in Notting Hill and knowing my background in property asked if I might be interested in it. Curious, I decided to stop by the property on the way to the restaurant and not one to be easily deterred I climbed over the fence and had a thorough look around the property and its plot.

Curiosity quickly became excitement and by the time I made it to the restaurant I had decided to turn our social lunch in to a business one – we negotiated on the price and I bought it right away.

Pleased as I was to have purchased this property it became immediately clear that there would be numerous restrictions on what we could do. Ultimately what I had purchased was a shed, on a busy road which backed up on to some council houses.