Did Housing Lobbyists Curry Favour with Fundraiser for Kevin McKenna MP?

At the end of last year, Labour YIMBY organiser Adam Allnutt hosted a private “curry night” fundraiser in support of two pro-housebuilding Labour MPs: Kevin McKenna, representing Sittingbourne and Sheppey, and Naushabah Khan, MP for the neighbouring constituency of Gillingham and Rainham.

Held on 28th October 2025 at the Mumbai Square restaurant in London, the event offered tickets from £45, rising to around £2,000 for corporate tables. The keynote speaker was Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government—the minister who will ultimately decide the fate of major planning applications, including Highsted Park.

More than 200 guests attended, including representatives from major housing developers and lobbying organisations. The scale and profile of the event raise questions about access, influence, and transparency—particularly given Reed’s quasi-judicial role in planning decisions. Once independent planning inspector Ms Downes submits her report into the Highsted Park inquiry, the final decision will rest with him.


There is no suggestion that any rules were broken at the fundraiser. However, the optics are difficult to ignore. The event sits against the backdrop of previous controversies linked to Labour Together Ltd, a think tank with which Reed was previously associated. The organisation, also linked to former Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, was later scrutinised in Paul Holden’s book The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. Labour Together was found to have committed more than 20 breaches of electoral law after failing to declare £730,000 in donations and was later criticised for hiring a PR firm to target journalists investigating its activities. Steve Reed was also a keynote speaker for the Labour YIMBY Awards Night ‘The Brickies’ on 24th November 2025.

The fundraiser also sheds light on a wider ecosystem of political advocacy, lobbying, and aligned organisations promoting a pro-development agenda—often branded under the term “YIMBY” (“Yes In My Back Yard”).

At the centre of this network is Adam Allnutt, treasurer and chief organiser of Labour YIMBY, who coordinated the event. He is also a director of several relevant companies, including TYI Group Limited (formerly The YIMBY Initiative Ltd), a public affairs lobbying firm whose clients include Quinn Estates Limited, the developer behind the Highsted Park scheme.

In addition, Allnutt is the sole director of Homes for Britain Ltd, an organisation that aims to promote support for the YIMBY movement. This company has made financial contributions to Kevin McKenna MP: £2,800 in June 2025 (paid as seven monthly instalments of £400 for “communications support”), followed by a further £2,200 donation in January 2026.


McKenna has consistently maintained close ties with the pro-development YIMBY network, appearing frequently at Labour-aligned YIMBY events. Notably, one of his earliest public engagements after his election saw him share a photo opportunity with Mark Quinn of Quinn Estates—just days before he became involved in the government’s decision to call in the Highsted Park planning application.

Kevin McKenna was not however acting alone; there is evidence pointing towards a coordinated effort involving multiple interested parties. Among them is Stuart King, founder of Quoin Partners, who—while working with The Terrapin Group and acting on behalf of Quinn Estates—submitted correspondence to government advocating for Highsted Park. Stuart King was also in attendance at the same fundraiser.

Further letters of support for the development were dispatched in rapid succession by a cluster of organisations, including TPG Angelo Gordon, Kent Housing and Development Group, Pioneer Group, Brett Aggregates and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The timing and alignment of these interventions invite scrutiny.

Individually, such overlaps may be dismissed as coincidence. Yet the presence of multiple figures, each with direct or indirect ties to the Highsted Park project, within the same political and fundraising circles begins to suggest a more structured network of influence.

It also turns out that both Adam Allnutt and Kevin McKenna ran in the 2022 Tower Hamlets Borough Council elections, each finishing in fourth place in their respective wards.

One striking detail about the recent curry night fundraiser is the absence of any recorded donation from Kevin McKenna MP. According to Naushabah Khan’s register of interests, a £3,000 donation appeared just days later on 7th November 2025, described vaguely as a “Political Donation for campaigning purposes following a fundraiser held by the company.” But scrutiny reveals it didn’t come from Labour YIMBY—the event’s organiser—but via Adam Allnutt’s company, Homes for Britain Ltd.

This is part of a wider pattern. Earlier in the year, on 27th May 2025, Labour YIMBY hosted a fundraiser for Andrew Western MP. Barely three weeks later, on 18th June, Homes for Britain Ltd recorded a donation covering “12 monthly payments (£416.66 each) to the communications consultancy 411 Communications Ltd, for social media advice and support for one year.”

The pattern continues. On 8th September 2025, fundraisers were held for Mike Reader MP and Chris Curtis MP, all at the same Mumbai Square location. Reader’s register of interests shows a £2,155 donation from Homes for Britain Ltd on 26th January 2026, labelled simply as a “Fundraiser donation.”

Chris Curtis, however, shows no entries for Homes for Britain Ltd or anything related to the fundraiser. Yet, TYI Group Limited (formerly The YIMBY Initiative Ltd) has made five donations totalling £22,666.64 for the provision of a staff member to support Curtis in his role as Co-Chair of the Labour Growth Group, a role he shares with Lola McEvoy MP.

The connections run deeper than you may think. Social media posts from the Labour Growth Group hint at a close relationship between the MPs and Allnutt’s enterprises, with one post applauding “Chris Curtis & Lola McEvoy (and Adam Allnutt & team doing stellar work behind the scenes).”

Concerns are mounting over the apparent connections between Adam Allnutt’s network of companies and Labour YIMBY, particularly regarding the pathways through which donations may be reaching MPs. Evidence of their close alignment surfaced at last year’s Labour Party Conference, where Allnutt, The YIMBY Initiative—since rebranded as TYI Group Limited—and Labour YIMBY all maintained a visible presence, highlighting their access to the party’s political orbit.

Further scrutiny is drawn to the involvement of Mark Quinn of Quinn Estates, previously identified as a client of Allnutt, who appeared as a guest speaker at the conference on 29th September for a session titled ‘Labour YIMBY: Rally for the Builders’. On the same day, Kevin McKenna MP participated in a panel hosted by The YIMBY Initiative. The previous day, Matthew Pennycook MP, serving as Minister of State for Housing & Planning, was also listed as a speaker for the group, contributing to a session titled “A YIMBY Route to Delivering 1.5 Million Homes.”

Taken together, these relationships—linking politicians, donors, lobbyists, and developers—paint a picture of an increasingly interconnected ecosystem shaping housing policy. It is a landscape that raises persistent questions about transparency, accountability, and where the line is drawn between legitimate advocacy and undue influence.

Andy Hudson
Sittingbourne.Me

Great article, confirming what everyone thought. This should be on BBC news or panorama. 

Well done Andy great article what goes on behind the scenes.

We all hope this planning application does not go ahead,this will affect all that live in Swale and Medway.