Dan Whelan
Dan Whelan is deputy editor at Place North West, covering commercial and residential property with a focus on how planning decisions, investor strategies and public funding shape major schemes. His coverage is defined by close tracking of long-running projects, especially stalled or contentious developments, and by an emphasis on what planning, legal and financial turning points mean for the organisations backing them. He combines dense project detail with clear explanations of roles for developers, investors, councils and agencies, making complex regional property stories legible to readers who need to understand both the assets and the decision-makers. He has been with Place North West since early 2020 in a senior newsroom role.
Planning battles and stalled schemes
Whelan repeatedly returns to projects that have been delayed or obstructed by planning and legal processes, treating them as ongoing stories rather than one-off announcements. His reporting on a 1,000-home Liverpool development, where investors secured a court victory after the scheme stalled, illustrates his interest in how legal outcomes unlock or reshape large housing sites and investor positions. Coverage of Wain Estates’ junction scheme, stuck in the planning system for years, and the four-year wait for 1m sq ft of sheds at Carrington tracks the incremental steps from proposal to probable consent. These pieces set out the planning history, the role of local authorities and the stakes for developers and investors, showing how delays accumulate and what it takes for projects to reach a decision point. He often writes in terms that highlight tension and resolution — “stalled” schemes, waits that “near crescendo” — giving readers a clear sense of momentum and risk around key logistics and industrial projects.
Housing, finance and investor strategy
Housing programmes and investor-backed residential schemes are a core strand of Whelan’s work, with attention both to unit numbers and to the structures behind them. His coverage of partnerships delivering thousands of rental homes with Homes England sets out how investors, developers and a public housing investment agency combine to fund and manage large portfolios, including deals for up to 3,300 rental units. The Liverpool court case on a stalled 1,000-home scheme shows him linking planning and litigation with investor expectations, documenting how backers seek to protect or recover value when projects are delayed. He also reports on financial institutions whose decisions affect property markets, such as a regional building society opening its first bricks-and-mortar branch, where he ties expansion plans to customer demand and local high street dynamics. Across these stories he consistently foregrounds who is putting up capital, how deals are structured and what changes in regulation or council decisions mean for the financial side of the real estate market.
Civic, cultural and archival projects
Alongside pure commercial development, Whelan covers civic and cultural infrastructure, particularly archive and history centres. In his piece on proposals for the Chester History Centre, he details the planned 24,000 sq ft archive and its location off Lightfoot Street, treating the scheme as both a construction project and an institutional asset. His report on a £12.5m North Wales archives facility focuses on the appointment of the construction firm and its role in delivering the scheme, underlining how contractor selection shapes timelines and outcomes for public-sector projects. These articles show an interest in how heritage, records and public collections are housed, and in the capital spending and procurement decisions that underpin those facilities.
Events, analysis and wider market coverage
In addition to daily news, Whelan plays a visible role in Place North West’s event-led and analytical output, particularly around the MIPIM property conference. He joins the masthead’s managing partner to look back on MIPIM weeks, discussing networking events, panel debates and front-line news, and exploring what future gatherings might mean for delegations from the North of England and Scotland. These debriefs blend reportage with commentary on market mood, policy themes and investment appetite, positioning him as a conduit between on-the-ground conference activity and the wider regional property audience. His previous experience covering football as a freelance sports reporter contributes to a style that is comfortable with live events and multi-stakeholder stories, carrying over into his handling of property conferences, panels and deal-making environments.
4 more real estate journalists.
Aasma Day
Aasma Day tells the story of money through the lives of ordinary people, showing how housing costs, pensions, benefits and everyday bills shape households’ fortunes. She is Money People Reporter at The i Paper, drawing on more than two decades in journalism and a deep background in investigative and regional reporting. Her beat is money people and household finances, with a focus on personal finance, housing pressures, property charges and real estate traps. She reports on state and private pensions, changes to benefits and allowances, and complex service charge regimes, using clear sums, named benefits and direct testimony. Her pieces are reported features built around individual cases, with plain, direct tone, detailed interviews and close scrutiny of the rules and institutions involved. Her earlier work at the Lancashire Evening Post earned a Specialist Writer of the Year award.
Aditi Ganguly
Aditi Ganguly is a financial writer who shows how market windfalls and headline-making companies turn into real-world spending, investing, and property decisions. She writes for Yahoo Finance and personal finance outlets that syndicate there. Her beat is sudden wealth, retail investors, and the shift from paper gains into luxury real estate and other big-ticket assets, with detailed reporting on newly minted millionaires from events like the SpaceX IPO. She compares familiar stocks so small investors can choose between names like Gap and American Eagle or Facebook and Pinterest, and tracks frontier themes from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency through their impact on portfolios. She explains surges in gold, shifts in consumer spending, and policy or credit moves in plain language, using specific stories, earnings, and advisor input to link big economic and market stories to concrete decisions about building long-term wealth.
Adrian Darbyshire
Adrian Darbyshire is a senior reporter whose work is driven by official documents, archives and on-the-ground detail, giving his stories a factual, report-led tone rooted in the character of specific places. He is a senior reporter at Isle of Man Today, covering how property, heritage and public decisions shape where people live and work. He links real estate stories with politics, history and environmental pressures, reporting closely on government reviews, parliamentary scrutiny, legislative proposals and ministerial conduct. He writes about historic structures, abandoned and threatened infrastructure, major property moves and residential sales, treating buildings as part of a continuing story about place. He also reports on environment, wildlife and land-use, focusing on how planning and infrastructure decisions affect heritage and ecology. He has worked in local journalism for more than two decades, with bylines spanning politics, health, environment, heritage and property.
Alexandra Goss
Alexandra Goss is an award-winning freelance property journalist who treats housing as both an asset class and the backdrop to people’s lives, using detailed case studies to show how money, family and lifestyle decisions meet. She writes regular features on buying, selling and living in homes for The Telegraph, and covers prime and super-prime real estate and its culture for outlets including the Financial Times, Spear’s and PrimeResi. A former deputy editor of The Sunday Times Home section, she reports on the UK housing market’s human impact, from divorce, later-life moves and intergenerational ties to the effects of mortgage rates, stamp duty, school fees and auctions. Her work blends narrative reporting, interviews and practical guides, giving readers clear context, concrete tips and insight into both mainstream and high-end property.