United Trust Bank (UTB) has announced the appointment of two new property development managers to its development finance division.

Phil Bird, formerly of Arbuthnot Latham and Evan Griffin, formerly of Lloyds Bank, are the latest senior hires at United Trust Bank and both will focus on maintaining and developing relationships with house builders and property investors in their regions and helping them to secure funding for suitable developments.

The pair join a team of originators which has doubled in size in the last six months.

Huw Jenkins and Paul Flannery joined the bank at the end of 2017 and together with Paul Keay, Jonathan Nail, Adam Bovingdon, Orla Costello, Steve Brigly and development finance head of sales, Paul Turton, the team of 10 experienced property finance professionals are supporting brokers and customers across the whole of England and Wales.

Griffin has joined UTB after 11 years at Lloyds Bank, most recently in the commercial banking and real estate divisions working directly with development and property investment clients. Evan is introducing UTB’s products and services to new and existing UTB customers operating predominantly in Yorkshire and the North East.

Bird spent the three years before joining UTB at Arbuthnot Latham where he was a senior manager in the Commercial Banking division with responsibility for managing and developing a diverse portfolio of residential and commercial property clients. He is building new relationships with brokers and developers across the southern half of England and Wales as well as supporting existing UTB customers.

Noel Meredith, executive director of United Trust Bank, said: “United Trust Bank has had a strong presence in the development finance sector for many years but over the last six months we’ve expanded the team further. We now have nine property development directors and managers, and a head of sales, serving developers and brokers all over the country from Cornwall in the South West to the coast of Wales, the Midlands and up to the lakes of Cumbria in the North of England.

“This growth follows another successful year for development finance at UTB and our securing an ENABLE guarantee from the British Business Bank which greatly increases our capacity to lend to SME house builders.

“The continued expansion of our activities and investment in the team underlines our commitment to serving UK house builders through the property cycle. Although there seems to be an almost constant state of political and economic uncertainty, our outlook for the UK property market remains positive and our ambition is to be the first-choice lender for house builders and developers building homes and investing in communities.

“With an increased capital base, we have funds immediately available to lend to those experienced developers wishing to build the right homes in the right places and for the right prices.”