People: New head of capital markets team in Yorkshire; Johnson Mowat appoints associate; and more

Property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton has strengthened its presence across Yorkshire with the appointment of Luke Symonds to head up its recently re-launched Capital Markets team.

Acting for a wide range of funds, property companies and private investors, Symonds will drive investment transactions and co-ordinate relationships between the office, industrial and capital markets teams across both LSH’s Leeds and Sheffield offices at a time of growing confidence within the regional commercial property market.

He joins from GVA in Newcastle, where he advised on over £100m of commercial transactions across the North of England for clients ranging from mainline funds to private individuals.

He is relocating to Leeds for the associate director role, reporting into director Bill Lynn who heads up the Capital Markets team in the North East.
Symonds said: “This is an exciting opportunity to work as part of a tight, local team to maximise deal opportunities across the investment spectrum. The regional investment market is in excellent shape. The volume of transactions across Yorkshire in the three months to September 2017 has already surpassed the total for 2016 by seven per cent to reach £975m.”

Matthew Scrimshaw, Head of North Region for LSH, added: “Luke is an experienced commercial property professional who will re-energise our capital markets presence and drive growth with his market intelligence and strategic advice.”

Symonds was previously a surveyor for York-based developer and investor Grantside. He is a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a RICS registered valuer.

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Leeds based planning and development consultancy Johnson Mowat has appointed an associate to lead its commercial development focus.

Hamish Robertshaw joins from Cushman & Wakefield in Leeds, having previously worked for DTZ in London and Leeds.

He advises on a broad range of planning and development matters but will focus primarily on expanding Johnson Mowat’s activity within the commercial development sector.

Robertshaw has previously acted for clients including Harworth Group, Npower, Realm, Royal Mail, Ardagh and Owens Corning as well as various health, education and government institutions.

He returns from a three month sabbatical spent in Australia, where he contributed to conservation and heritage projects.

Robertshaw said: “I am delighted to be joining Johnson Mowat to help expand their business and to continue to promote high quality commercial development across Yorkshire and the north of England.”

Mark Johnson, managing partner of Johnson Mowat, added: “We welcome Hamish to the business and look forward to working with him to expand our advice to landowners and developers in the commercial sector.”

 

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Yorkshire law firm Gordons has welcomed its latest graduate from its legal apprenticeship scheme.

Megan Boldison qualifies as a chartered legal executive in the private client team. The Leeds and Bradford-based firm launched the Gordons Apprenticeship Programme in 2011 and has taken on 19 apprentices including its first graduate, Bryony Russell, who qualified earlier this year.

Boldison was one of a handful of 18-year-old school leavers accepted to train as a chartered legal executive lawyer over five years. Gordons provided her with practical experience and academic study, as well as paying her salary and course fees.

Boldison said: “Applying for the Gordons Apprenticeship Programme was the best decision I have made. I threw myself into the real world and got great hands-on experience alongside a senior lawyer. By the time my university friends were looking for their first job, I was one year off being a qualified lawyer.”

Gordons created its apprenticeship scheme to provide an alternative route into the profession for youngsters without them needing to attend university. It was the first law firm to offer an apprenticeship programme taking its chartered legal executive lawyers to the maximum Level 6 – an honours degree equivalent – rather than the Level 3 offered by similar schemes.

 

Gordons partner and head of operations, Victoria Davey, said: “Megan is a bright and hardworking lawyer and a real asset to our private client team. It’s great to be celebrating her fifth year at Gordons alongside the firm’s second apprenticeship graduation.

“We want to bring in a new generation of talented people who have a positive outlook and excellent behaviours, so in many ways it doesn’t matter where they’re from or what school they attended. At Gordons we have a maxim of ‘people first, lawyers second’ and Megan is yet more proof that this approach is what our clients and colleagues want.”

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Building and civil engineering business, Britcon, has expanded its in house expertise with the creation of a mechanical & electrical position across its offices in Wakefield.

Patrick Kenworthy has joined in the role bringing over 30 years’ experience in building services management.   A qualified energy assessor, Patrick has an extensive track record in delivering complex projects across both the public and private sectors with particular knowledge in education, health and renewable energy. He joins from Centrica DE&P where he recently completed a 20MW generation plant in Scunthorpe’.

Paul Clarkson, Managing Director at Britcon, said, “We are delighted to have Patrick on board for this newly created role.  We have expanded our remit for M&E installations in a major way and this often accounts for nearly 50% of the brief on many projects.  It makes perfect sense for us now to create an in-house role with immediate capacity to offer direct energy assessment and dialogue with our subcontract supply chain.

The appointment reflects continuous growth for Britcon, in particular on highly complex projects where bespoke and specialist expertise is required.  These include a new £14 million product line for Kemira Chemicals and the recently completed £30 million anaerobic digestion plan for ReFood in Dagenham.

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