As Senior Property Writer for The Times and The Sunday Times, Lees operates at the intersection of policy, finance, and design. Her work consistently drives national conversations on housing equity and safety reforms.
Her 2024 investigation into evacuation protocols directly influenced amendments to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill, cited five times in parliamentary debates. Lees maintains a solutions-focused approach, exemplified by her 2025 series on modular housing’s potential to accelerate safe construction.
We’ve followed Martina Lees’s career as a journalist who combines rigorous investigative reporting with a deep understanding of the human stories behind housing policy. Her work at The Times and The Sunday Times has redefined property journalism by prioritizing accessibility, accountability, and solutions-oriented storytelling.
Lees’s career spans over a decade, marked by a focus on systemic issues in housing and personal finance. Early roles saw her dissecting the 2008 financial crisis’s impact on UK homeowners, laying the groundwork for her later award-winning coverage of the cladding scandal. Her transition to The Times in 2015 coincided with the rise of the "generation rent" narrative, which she explored through groundbreaking pieces on affordability and tenant rights.
This 2024 investigation exposed how 15,000 residents had been displaced from unsafe buildings due to fire safety defects, despite government pledges of remediation funding. Lees combined data journalism (tracking the allocation of £9.1 billion in grants) with poignant case studies, including families living in temporary accommodations for over three years. The article’s revelation that only 8% of affected buildings had been repaired – contrary to official claims of 23% – prompted parliamentary debates and renewed calls for regulatory reform.
"While ministers tout progress statistics, our analysis of DHLUC data shows the actual remediation rate falls below 10% when accounting for excluded mid-rise buildings."
In this 2025 piece, Lees analyzed how major developers are adapting to the UK’s housing shortage through public-private partnerships. She highlighted Weston Homes’ strategy to collaborate with local authorities on brownfield site developments, contrasting it with traditional speculative building models. The article underscored the growing importance of affordability covenants in planning approvals.
This 2025 report detailed plans to repurpose underutilized railway-adjacent land for housing. Lees emphasized the potential for transit-oriented developments to address regional imbalances in housing supply, while questioning whether infrastructure timelines would align with construction goals.
Lees prioritizes stories that reveal how legislation affects everyday homeowners. A successful 2024 piece on changes to permitted development rights exemplified this, showing how office conversions exacerbated the cladding crisis. PR professionals should highlight experts who can bridge technical regulations (e.g., Building Safety Act provisions) with resident experiences.
While critical of greenwashing, Lees frequently covers material science advancements in construction. Her 2023 feature on fire-resistant cladding alternatives demonstrated this balance. Pitches should emphasize peer-reviewed research or case studies with verifiable performance data over promotional claims.
Articles like her 2024 "North-South Divide in Retrofit Funding" reveal Lees’ interest in geographic inequities. Local authorities or housing associations with innovative approaches to rural affordability or coastal community preservation make strong pitch candidates.
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on RealEstate, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
