Development firm Ardale has sold a 28-acre site near Tinakilly, Co Wicklow, which guided at €22.5 million, to publicly-listed builder Cairn Homes.Property market sources told The Irish Times the land, which has capacity for 400 homes, was sold for in excess of the guide price attached.Ardale, the house builder led by Emma Maye, has developed hundreds of homes in Wicklow, including Mariner’s Point and Clermont Grove.The firm is due to launch the last remaining phase at Mariner’s Point shortly. Maye said the company will scope out further land opportunities in Ireland but plans to focus its efforts on the UK as development in Ireland has become “a little bit difficult”.Ardale acquired the 28-acre Tinakilly site, which has been sold to Cairn Homes, as part of a larger 132-acre land bank in 2015.Ardale has developed 350 houses on part of this land bank, but faced difficulties securing planning permission to develop other parts of the site that were zoned for residential use.Permission was ultimately secured to develop 220 homes on the 28-acre site being sold following a judicial review by Ardale of an initial planning refusal. Further changes to planning guidelines have provided scope to boost density to 400 homes on site.Maye told The Irish Times the issues faced with the planning process have left her “a little worn out”.“We are going to start looking to the UK because we’re finding Ireland a little bit difficult. England just seems to be much easier to work in.“The Home Counties are where we’re looking to dip our toe because there are opportunities. Every day there’s a negative story politically in the UK economy and the house builders are struggling over there with sales.“We plan to put a land bank together with a view to commencing construction in two years time. We have two land banks in legals at the moment in the UK.” Cairn Homes, which has an overall land bank with capacity for 18,400 units spread across 39 large-scale sites, has been an active participant in the development land market in recent years, acquiring large land banks in Cork, Galway and Dublin.In 2025, the company bought land with capacity for 4,500 new homes that can be delivered in the medium term.Earlier this year, Michael Stanley, chief executive of Cairn Homes, said the company has also struck a number of joint venture-type arrangements with investors to develop large development sites.Last year, the builder entered a joint venture with Tommy Kelly’s family office CastleGate to partner on the delivery of a Dublin development site.“For us, we don’t necessarily think that we need to go back and simply replace every site by acquiring a new site. “We can do that through a more strategic approach. That strategic approach includes what we call option deals, where we look at large strategic land banks that might be owned by private individuals or investment entities like Castlegate.”