Madison Brook.

Madison Brook is a property company specialising in working with local authorities, LATCOs, and registered housing providers to deliver homes through acquisition, refurbishment, and structured long-term partnerships. Having sold their estate agency arm, they needed a website that reflected a fundamentally different business – one built on public sector relationships rather than private property transactions.

Project overview.

Client: Madison Brook

Madison Brook came to us at a pivot point. They had sold their estate agency business and were restructuring around a clear set of core services: purchase and repair programmes, construction and refurbishment, and long-term partnerships and funding structures with local authorities and housing associations.

The problem was that their website still looked and functioned like an estate agency. It had a property search, valuation tools, and a sales and lettings page – none of which reflected who they were any more or the clients they were trying to reach. There was good content buried in there, but it wasn’t focused, it wasn’t structured for the right audiences, and it wasn’t making their proposition clear.

The client came to us with a brief to fix that. They needed a website repositioned around their established public sector work, with strong case studies and project evidence, a proper content structure for their services, and – importantly – a site that was fully accessible.

Visit Madison Brook

Scope of work.

Research and discovery
User experience and information architecture
Website design
Website development
CMS setup and block system development
SEO migration and growth strategy
Performance optimisation
Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA)
GDPR compliance
QA, delivery, and launch

Our approach.

Discovery and planning

We started with research, auditing the existing content, identifying what to cut and what to keep, and using AI-assisted research to map comparable organisations and build out detailed user flow diagrams for different visitor types. Each flow considered what that person needed from the site: whether they were making an enquiry, checking compliance documentation, or trying to understand how Madison Brook could help at a specific stage of a project.

The key insight from the research was that Madison Brook’s real value is their ability to support clients across the entire property lifecycle – acquisition, refurbishment, leasing and management, maintenance, capital works, and disposal. Structuring the site around that lifecycle became central to the architecture.

We also identified three distinct audience groups, so clear signposting for each became a core part of the design brief. Once research was complete, we presented our findings and full documentation to the client before moving into design and build.

Design

They came to us with brand guidelines that had been built for an estate agency. One early moment that built confidence: we’d proposed a colour direction in our proposal, and it turned out Madison Brook had independently landed on the same choice in a newer version of their guidelines that they’d initially sent us the older version of.

From there, we pushed the brand further with elements including a large wordmark in the footer and an ‘M’ mark used in hero banners. A divider line derived from the letterform was also used throughout the site to guide users down the page and anchor headings. These choices made the brand functional at every touchpoint.

The result is a site that feels considered and timeless – it has weight and credibility without feeling corporate or cold. This is exactly the balance that public sector audiences need to see.

Accessibility

Accessibility was built in from day one. We reviewed the brand colour palette for compliance, assessed font choices, and carried accessibility thinking through every stage of design and development. The final site meets WCAG 2.2 AA standard, and the remediation needed after the initial audit was minimal – which reflects the care that went into it throughout.

Development

The site is built on WordPress using our Lark block-based framework. Lark gives us a library of flexible, pre-built content blocks that can be configured, combined, and extended to suit the specific needs of each project – so rather than building from scratch each time, we’re building on a solid, proven foundation and putting our effort into what’s unique to the client.

For Madison Brook, that meant configuring and customising blocks to bring the design to life. Each block is designed to work cleanly across all devices and screen sizes, without the need for custom workarounds.

Because the site is built on WordPress with Lark’s block system, the CMS is straightforward to use. The team at Madison Brook can log in and update content, add case studies, or create new pages themselves, without needing developer support for routine changes. We trained them up as part of the project, and the majority of content was added by us during the build – so they launched with a full, well-structured site rather than an empty shell.

Lark is also designed to grow with the business. New blocks can be added as needs evolve, and the structure of the site makes it straightforward to extend content areas or add new sections without disrupting what’s already there. For a business in the middle of repositioning itself, that flexibility is important.

What we delivered

A fully redesigned website repositioned for public sector audiences. Clear signposting and tailored journeys for three distinct customer groups. The full property lifecycle mapped across the site architecture. An evolved brand identity – more functional and trustworthy, without losing its personality. Built on our Lark framework and meeting WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards. The client was trained to update content, with the majority of content added as part of the project itself.

We appointed We Create Digital to lead the redevelopment of the Madison Brook website as part of a wider repositioning of the business. From the outset, they took the time to understand not just what we wanted the website to look like, but what we were trying to achieve strategically. They translated a fairly complex proposition into something clear, intuitive and genuinely representative of our business. I was particularly impressed by the way the project itself was managed. The programme was exceptionally well structured and scheduled, with complete transparency around timelines, deliverables and what was required from us at each stage. Commitments were clear, deadlines were realistic and, importantly, the team did what they said they would do when they said they would do it. They were also collaborative throughout and prepared to challenge our thinking where they felt there was a better approach, rather than simply executing the brief. We're extremely pleased with the finished website and the experience of getting there. I would have no hesitation recommending We Create Digital and would happily work with the team again.

John Lipper

CEO | Madison Brook

The results.

The client was delighted with the outcome. They noted that we took the time to understand both what they wanted the site to look like and what they were trying to achieve strategically – and that those two things came together clearly in the finished product.