Tom Bloxham

Biography:

Tom Bloxham MBE is chairman, majority shareholder and founder of award-winning regeneration company Urban Splash. The business has almost 400 awards for architecture, regeneration, design and business success. 

Tom is chair of the Manchester International Festival, a trustee of the Tate, Manchester United Foundation Charity and The Bloxham Charitable Trust. 

The former chancellor of The University of Manchester (2008-2015), Tom was also founding chair of the Centre for Cities think-tank, a director of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Company, chair of Arts Council England North West, a trustee of Big Issue in the North and a member of the Government’s property advisory and urban sounding board. In 2014, he was a commissioner of the Lyons Review on housing He was also a governor and the founder of New Islington Free School. 

In 1999 at the age of 35, Tom was awarded an MBE for his services to Architecture and Urban Regeneration. Other awards include; The College of Estate Management Property Award (2008); The RSA Bicentenary Medal (2008); North West Insider Property Personality of the Year (2004); Building Magazine Property Entrepreneur Award (2003); the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year Award (2002) and the Ernst & Young National Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (1999). 

He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and has received a number of honorary degrees and doctorates from the University of Bristol, the University of Manchester (2007), Oxford Brookes University (2004), the University of Central Lancashire (2003), John Moores University in Liverpool (2001), the University of Cumbria (2010) and the University of Plymouth (2011). 

Tom, born in 1963, started out selling re extinguishers door to door, then while at Manchester University studying politics and history started selling records and posters from market stalls. He established and subsequently sold a local radio station, as well as the Baa Bar chain, which was sold for an eight figure sum. 

In 1993 he founded Urban Splash with Jonathan Falkingham to redevelop an unloved building in Liverpool into the successful Concert Square mixed-use scheme. Since then, Urban Splash has undertaken more than 60 schemes, creating thousands of new homes and jobs and investing nearly a billion pounds into successful regeneration projects across the country including; Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, Shef eld, Bristol, Plymouth and Morecambe. 

In 2016, Tom and Jonathan launched hoUSe – their modular housing concept in Manchester, which is now being rolled out at sites around the UK.

Tom lives in Manchester city centre. He enjoys Manchester United, skiing, drinking and living a full life.