With leadership roles spanning land, planning and construction materials, businessman Amit Bhatia occupies a distinctive position in the UK housing ecosystem.
While his companies may not be household names outside the industry, their influence is significant. Bhatia is a founding partner of Summix, a specialist land and planning business, and the chairman and largest shareholder of Breedon Group, the FTSE 250 construction materials company. Together, the two organisations sit at the heart of Britain’s housing supply chain – from securing land and planning permission to providing the materials needed to build.
In effect, his businesses operate at both the beginning and the backbone of the country’s housebuilding process.
Sports fans may recognise Bhatia more readily from the stands at Queens Park Rangers, the west London football club where he has been a long-standing owner and director. This summer he will also be seen at Lord’s, following his investment in London Spirit, one of the franchises in the ECB’s Hundred cricket competition, alongside prominent technology leaders including Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto Networks), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet) and Satya Nadella (Microsoft).
Bhatia’s principal focus, however, remains housing and infrastructure.
At Summix, which he co-founded with his partners more than a decade ago, the aim is to address one of Britain’s most persistent economic challenges: the shortage of homes. The company specialises in identifying land – often brownfield, industrial or underutilised sites – and navigating the planning process to unlock it for housing development.
Few issues in Britain are as widely acknowledged, yet as difficult to resolve, as the housing shortage. Successive governments have pledged to build more homes, but supply has consistently lagged demand. Much of the difficulty lies in the complexity and slow pace of the planning system.
Bhatia’s experience studying the housing market led him to conclude that planning had become one of the biggest bottlenecks to increasing supply. The process was expensive, time-consuming and uncertain, discouraging investment and slowing development.
Summix was created to tackle precisely that problem. Its model is to acquire land, work with communities and local authorities to secure planning approval, and then sell the consented sites to builders and developers who deliver much-needed homes.
The business initially operated using partner capital, but its early success led to the launch of Summix Capital Fund Onein 2016, followed by a second fund. Today the funds attract institutional investors and family offices from the UK and overseas, including the sovereign wealth fund of Ireland, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.
One of Summix’s most significant projects currently under consideration is at Worcestershire Parkway in the West Midlands. Working alongside stakeholders including Homes England, the company has proposed a large-scale new community that could ultimately deliver up to 10,000 homes, along with schools, healthcare facilities and community infrastructure across thousands of acres of land.
The company’s philosophy, set out on its website as “listening today to create tomorrow,” reflects an emphasis on engagement with local communities before planning applications are submitted – a process intended to ensure developments create long-term economic and social value.
Alongside his work at Summix, Bhatia chairs Breedon Group plc, the UK’s largest independent construction materials business. A national champion with around 350 sites and revenues of approximately £2 billion, Breedon produces and supplies aggregates, cement, asphalt and ready-mixed concrete across the UK. In recent years the company has expanded into Ireland and the United States, transforming into an international building materials business of growing scale.
Construction materials are a crucial part of the housing supply chain, but cement production is also one of the most carbon-intensive industrial processes. Breedon has therefore been investing heavily in technologies and initiatives designed to reduce emissions and help the sector move towards net zero over the coming decades.
Bhatia has also been active in industry discussions about the future of UK construction. Earlier this year he joined other business leaders in meetings with advisers at Downing Street to discuss how government policy could support housebuilding and infrastructure.
One issue raised by industry leaders is the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which places a carbon price on imports. Without a similar system in the UK, there are concerns that domestic producers could face unfair competition from imported materials produced under less stringent environmental standards.
Despite these challenges, Bhatia remains optimistic about Britain’s long-term prospects. London continues to attract global investment, while the need for housing, infrastructure and regeneration across the country remains substantial.
Unlike some business leaders who have relocated overseas in recent years, Bhatia continues to base both his businesses and his family life in the UK, where he lives with his wife Vanisha and their three children.
Sport is another long-standing passion. In addition to his involvement with QPR and London Spirit, Bhatia has invested in The Bay Golf Club, part of the technology-driven golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Through his activities across housing, infrastructure and sport, Bhatia’s influence spans several sectors of the UK economy. From enabling the development of new communities to supporting construction supply chains and investing in sport, he remains closely engaged with the country’s growth story.
Despite the challenges facing Britain’s housing market, Bhatia believes the country has the capacity to overcome them – provided the planning system becomes faster, simpler and more supportive of development. If that happens, businesses like Summix and Breedon will play an even larger role in delivering the homes Britain needs.
