People: Five senior promotions at law firm; Board additions at housing association; Freeths lawyer made partner; and more

FIVE senior promotions have been made by Yorkshire and North East law firm Newtons Solicitors.
 
Claire Armer, who joined Newtons Solicitors two years ago, becomes the firm’s operations director, while senior solicitors Carole Gibbs and Rachel Baul are appointed team leaders of the private client and family law teams respectively.

Senior solicitors Rachel Robinson and Matt Butcher take joint team leadership responsibility for the firm’s largest department, residential property.
 
They join existing team leaders, director and head of company commercial James Towler, senior solicitor Dave Birks, who heads the dispute resolution team, and director Gareth Jones, who leads the commercial property team.
 
All the teams operate across the firm’s office network in Darlington, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Leyburn, Northallerton, Ripon, Richmond, Stokesley, Thirsk and York.
 
Managing director Chris Newton said: “These appointments are part of our strategy to share management responsibility to give us increased strength, depth and resilience as we continue to grow as well as creating excellent career development opportunities within our teams.”

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LIZ BANKS has been promoted to partner at Freeths’ Leeds office in recognition of her expertise and development of the real estate team.

Ms Banks joined Freeths in 2015 and has played a pivotal role in the growth of the real estate team, which has trebled in size over the past 12 months.

Her experience includes acting for investors, developers and advising on major retail and other development schemes.
 
The growth of the Leeds office contributed to Freeths celebrating its most successful financial results in March this year, with an annual fee income of £63.8m. The Leeds office itself saw a significant office increase of over 40%.
John May, managing partner in Leeds, said: “We appreciate the dedication and commitment Liz has shown to her role and the firm as a whole and are pleased to welcome her as partner.”

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FOUR new recruits have joined Barnsley Chartered Accountants and Chartered Tax Advisers Harris+Co over the summer bringing total staff numbers to 36.   

Leanne Revill joined as a payroll administrator from a Sheffield firm and will be studying for a Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals Diploma.   

Matthew Lewis has also been welcomed on board and will continue his training to become a Chartered Certified Accountant.  Bethany Morgan-Mackenzie and Hannah McFadden have both joined as accounting apprentices from Barnsley College and will train to become Accounting Technicians.   

Partner Paul Hinchliffe said: “We have shown continued strong growth in demand for our services in recent years, particularly over the last 18 months, reflecting both the success of our clients and also a number of excellent new client wins. This is great news for the local economy and for the wider Yorkshire region.  We are delighted that as a result of this growth and success we have been able to give the opportunity to four local young people to develop their careers with us, in addition to three new recruits in summer 2015.”   

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WILL LIFFORD, a chartered accountant and former head of audit at Grant Thornton, has been appointed as chairman of the board at Yorkshire Housing.

He will lead the 18,000 home housing association, which has properties across the Yorkshire area, as it delivers plans to expand its home-building programme and cater for a boarder range of customers including those looking to buy.
 
Sue Hall, who recently retired as director of information systems and strategy with leading global law firm Linklaters, has been appointed as vice chair.

Director of finance at Sheffield Hallam Philip Severs also joined the board.

The appointments were announced at the AGM where Yorkshire Housing reflected on a successful year which saw turnover grow to £94m. A £13m surplus was achieved through efficiency savings, sale of properties, strong performance on contracts and an increase in work conducted in-house.

Yorkshire Housing chief executive Mervyn Jones said: “I’m delighted to welcome Will and the other new members to the board. They bring a wealth of commercial knowledge and expertise which will help Yorkshire Housing continue to grow. We want to build more homes, support government ambitions to increase home ownership and continue and continue to offer homes to rent for those with few choices in the housing market.”