Bluepencil are a highly professional team offering a personalised and dedicated service resulting in high client retention rates and repeat business.

‘We specialise in residential masterplanning. Our mission is to achieve design quality, maintain design integrity and significantly add value to your business and to the communities who live in and around our developments. We specialise in complex planning challenges and have an outstanding planning success rate.’

Founder and Director, Mette McLarney has over 30 years experience in residential design and masterplanning, including 13 years at Countryside Properties (the first developer ever to win the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture for their development at Accordia in Cambridge in 2008). As Countryside Properties’ Group Chief Architect, heading up both internal and external design teams, Mette worked with several world renowned architects on over 21 complex award winning masterplans, including Great Notley Garden Village and Beaulieu Park in Essex and Great Kneighton and Accordia in Cambridge. As architect, urban designer and masterplanner with a background in housing development, she has a thorough understanding of the industry from land values to sales and marketing, has been an advisor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the topic of Design Codes and has participated in several working parties, including those organised by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). ​She has a wealth of experience in residential design from the detailed design of individual houses through to large scale, mixed use, strategic masterplanning.

Bluepencil was conceived as a specialist consultancy to prepare planning applications for property developers, land owners and local authorities with a tailor made service which understood their needs and could respond to them quickly with accurate, robust information.

Bluepencil has a fluid business structure, made up of one leader and a group of skilled individuals who collaborate as and when required. They all share the ethos, integrity and design quality of Bluepencil. This group can expand or contract depending on workload and on the precise resources required for each individual project. This keeps Bluepencil agile and responsive. It also offers clients the very best value for money. All concept design, design decisions, meeting attendance and client facing is by Mette herself. This is a fundamental characteristic of Bluepencil Designs. Mette is dedicated and passionate about her work and the success of her business which has resulted in an outstanding track record of planning success.