United Trust Bank (UTB) has made five appointments to its development finance team.

The lender said the team’s expansion is in response to increasing demand for property finance from house builders and developers across England and Wales.

Simon Cartwright, Kerry Cooney, Ashley Collier and Davinder Birthee have joined UTB from other lenders and Anna Wojtowicz has been promoted from her previous role as senior case manager. They will be working directly with house builders and developers providing bespoke development funding solutions.

Cartwright has over 30 years’ financial services experience having previously worked for Assetz Capital, Handelsbanken, HSBC and RBS. He has been appointed senior manager – property development and will be primarily  supporting clients across the Midlands.

Cooney has joined UTB from Oblix Capital and during her 16 years in banking has also held real estate sector roles with Arbuthnot Latham and Bank of Ireland. As manager – property development, she will work closely with property development director Steve Brigly supporting customers in London, the South East and East of England.

Collier joins UTB from Assetz Capital and has previously worked at Royal Bank of Scotland in various property development roles from monitoring to risk management and credit. As manager – property development he will work with property development director Huw Jenkins supporting customers in the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

As manager – property development, Birthee will be working with Hardeep Thandi, director – property development, supporting customers across the Midlands, Yorkshire, Humber and the North East. Birthee joins UTB from Barclays Real Estate where for the last six years he has been a relationship support manager.

Wojtowicz has been a senior case manager in UTB’s development finance team for the last four years and has previously worked at Bank Leumi, Allied Irish Bank and Wells Fargo. Having been promoted to manager – property development she will be working with property development director Philip Kirkwood supporting customers in London, the South and East of England.

Adam Bovingdon (pictured), senior director – property development at United Trust Bank, said: “Simon, Kerry, Ashley, Davinder and Anna bring many years of collective knowledge and experience to the team and most importantly a desire to build strong, long term relationships supporting the building activities of developers and house builders across the regions.

“These appointments coincide with increased demand for development finance facilities generated by the launch of the £250m Housing Accelerator fund with Homes England. With this and other exciting announcements to come in the year ahead, now is the right time to strengthen the team and these appointments ensure we are well placed to support our brokers and customers in 2021.”