VRAJ PANKHANIA is a modest British African Asian who has achieved incredible things.
Founder and now chairman of Westcombe Group, Pankhania has led the business to be one of the UK’s most successful residential property developers, a £500 million company.
Through his perseverance, hard work, and savvy entrepreneurialism, Westcombe grew from a £5,000 loan to one of the UK’s top 25 property developers, and the leading developer specialising in bringing to life the beauty in old disused listed buildings.
Pankhania’s achievements in the property sector speak for themselves. Overcoming myriad planning and development challenges, he has led the company in creating beautiful new developments at sites including St Bernard’s Hospital, Ealing, Connaught Barracks, Woolwich, and the Chocolate Factory, Old Street.
Under his oversight, the company launched the Dholak Partnership in 2019, Westcombe’s own affordable housing arm. It began letting properties to key workers during the pandemic, ensuring that they had a safe, affordable and local accommodation for them and their families. Pankhania plans to grow the Dholak Partnership to over 1,000 properties by 2030, so that as many key workers as possible can access such housing.
“It is no secret that London is at the centre of the UK’s housing crisis. One in 10 London households in need of housing are stuck on waiting lists for as long as five years due to a “chronic shortage” of affordable homes. That’s why Westcombe Group set up Dholak Partnership Ltd, the business’ own social housing association, to provide affordable homes amongst their developments, as part of a wider move by property developers to register their own housing association arms”, Pankhania told to GG2 Power List.
Through this banner, Pankhania aims to “help people off the streets and into their own homes”.
The association was approved in December 2019, and not long after Dholak Partnership began delivering affordable units, which were rented to key workers during the pandemic, ensuring they had access to safe, affordable and local housing near to hospitals for these key workers and their families. The company currently has 18 key worker units which were rented out to hospital staff and plans to grow this number beyond 1,000 by 2030.
Pankhania’s family originally hails from India’s Gujarat region. Over 100 years ago the family travelled to East Africa. Born to a humble background in Kenya and having been forced to relocate to the UK in 1968, he successfully started his own property development after spending his early years in London, dabbling in car dealerships, selling and buying motors.
He often attributes his success to his “tremendous work force, many of which are working with him for more than 25 years”.
“My father started working for the British Army in the construction industry, building camps and he was always been in the construction industry. So the property runs in, in the blood,” Pankhania said at the 2022 Asian Business Awards winning the Family Business of the Year Award.
Family is vitally important to Pankhania. His sons, Kamal, and Sunil, now run the business as CEO and Operations Director respectively.
“Family plays a vital role in the running of the Westcombe Group. I was keen to ensure that my sons, Kamal, and Sunil understood the importance of hard work, perseverance, and the value of money from a young age – therefore, they have been working in the business since they were teens,” he said.
The family has never forgotten its humble beginnings. This drives its ethos of wanting to give back and helping to support communities, the rationale behind the company’s charitable arm, the Westcombe Foundation.
Pankhania has a superb history of philanthropy through the Foundation, which he created in 2008 to help formalise and strategize his ongoing charitable giving. The Foundation has helped people around the world, from funding emergency relief and reconstruction after devastating earthquakes struck Nepal in 2015 to setting up orphanages and funding cancer care in India.
It has sponsored several charitable efforts including the Royal Charity Polo Day (which raised £1 million for Tusk Trust and Sentebale in 2015) and the Hindu Forum’s Diwali celebrations at the House of Commons in October 2017.
Additionally, the foundation provides up to £547,000 in annual support for emergency aid, construction of hospitals and schools, food donations and other forms of assistance to people in need around the world.
In 2018, the Foundation funded a katha event for the community, hosted in Wembley, feeding 9,000 people every day for nine days.
Pankhania has also been a four-year principal sponsor of the highly prestigious Royal Charity Polo Day, sponsoring sit-down dinners for 1,000 people. These events raised £1million for the charities Tusk Trust and Sentebale, the chosen causes of then-HRH The Prince of Wales (Prince William) and then-HRH The Duke of Sussex (Prince Harry).
Currently, Pankhania is working to open a homeless shelter, located at the St Bernard’s Hospital site in West London.
Pankhania is motivated above all by the positive and lasting impact for the public good that he has achieved throughout his 50-year career. He runs business with the mindset of a social entrepreneur, giving back to local communities and the nation.
“In recent months, the cost-of-living crisis has become a concern for millions of people across the country. We understand that not all people live in a place they can call home and we believe that all people experiencing homelessness should be entitled to support and assistance. That’s why, in 2023, we are doubling down our efforts to help people off the streets and into their own homes as quickly as possible,” said Pankhania.
