Fri 1 Aug 2008
August
Savills has appointed Ivor Lafford as an associate to join its development department at Milton Keynes. Lafford has 20 years experience in the property industry and for the last four years has specialised in residential land acquisition and disposal in and around Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire.Commenting on the latest Savills recruitment, Jason Hill, head of development land for the western region of Savills, said: "Ivor will be joining the Milton Keynes team which is forged around the Hepher Dixon acquisition that took place 18 months ago. Even in these tougher times Savills see Milton Keynes and the M1 corridor as a key growth area for development land in the coming years and Ivor will be a welcomed addition both to assist on strategic land deals and short term sales and acquisitions."
His existing clients include Persimmon Homes, Places for People, Howard Sharp and Partners and Leighton and Henley Ltd.
At Urban Renaissance Villages, the retirement village developer, there has been various appointments and promotions: Iwan Jones MRTPI previously planning manager is promoted to land & planning director. Peter Rand FCA formerly financial manager is promoted to financial director. And Cliff Meyler has joined the company as operations director. He was formerly in a similar role with Retirement Villages Ltd.
Adrian Hewitt, who was responsible for driving the radical renewable energy 'Merton Rule' policy into the mainstream of the UK planning process, is to head up new sustainability and renewable energy consultancy, Metropolis Green.
Metropolis Green has been set up by London urban planning and design consultancy, Metropolis Planning and Design, which is headed by Nigel Bennett and Greg Cooper.
Hewitt, former Principal Environment Officer for the London Borough of Merton, will develop and implement renewable energy strategies for Metropolis Green's property and development clients. He will draw on his extensive experience of the planning system and his detailed knowledge of low-carbon technologies.
"Metropolis Green will suit me very well," said Hewitt. "It fully understands that new approaches are needed for meeting the energy and sustainability challenges of the future. We will explore emerging building technologies and systems and design energy strategies to suit a range of clients."
Nigel Bennett said: "I am excited at the prospect of having Hewitt lead our new environmental venture. His broad and in-depth experience gives him a unique insight into delivering low-carbon buildings from a national perspective right down to the site specific level and, importantly, from both the developers' and local planning authorities' perspective."
With over 30 years experience in the building industry, including 12 running his own company, Steve Edwards is sure to settle nicely into his new role as Redrow's construction director for Yorkshire.
Edwards, 51, who joined the construction industry straight from school in 1973 and worked his way up the ranks, is based at Redrow Homes (Yorkshire), in Wakefield.
As part of his role, he will oversee the construction of all new housing developments from start to finish in an area that currently expands from Malton in the north to Sheffield in the south, and all parts of Yorkshire in between; making sure that all new homes are delivered to the highest quality standards and within deadline.
He says: "Working for such a great housebuilder like Redrow is very rewarding. It has such a great company culture and its attention to detail and the quality of the homes it builds is very impressive."
Housing association Moat has announced two new appointments. Phil Davison has joined as new director of corporate performance, focusing on leading two teams responsible for improving services across Moat using performance data, customer feedback and sector business intelligence.He brings valuable experience from his previous role as service development manager at local housing association, Orbit South. Previous to that, he worked for Moat between 2000 and 2005 in various roles in home ownership, IT/IS and policy and quality.
Commenting on his new role, Davison said: "I am excited about meeting the challenges and contributing to Moat's mission to deliver high quality performance management and continuous improvement."
Meanwhile, Ebele Akojie will lead on managing risk across Moat. She will also be responsible for making sure Moat can continue to grow and provide a great service as well as sustain itself financially over time. Akojie formerly worked at the Housing Finance Corporation where she was a relationship manager within credit compliance and control and within sales and marketing. Previous to that, she was head of corporate finance for Shaftesbury Housing Group.
Akojie says: "I was attracted to Moat due to its successful reputation and I look forward to adding value to the organisation through my new role."
Construction, property and development consultancy DBK Group has made four senior promotions. Neil Grocock has been promoted to regional director at DBK's London office, Patrick McCourt has been promoted to a divisional director, heading up all data centre projects across the UK and Stuart Clark and Mike Nolan have been promoted to associate directors at the company's Birmingham headquarters within the Property Services and Residential Consultancy teams respectively.
Tim Downing, managing director of DBK Group said: "To keep the momentum of growth in such a challenging market, it is essential that we have a formidable senior management team. The four senior promotions we have made to mark the start of our 2008/9 year acknowledge both the commitment made to the business to date by these individuals and the emphasis on business development and team leadership that we want Neil, Patrick, Stuart and Mike to play in DBK's future."
Grocock, 38, joined DBK at the time of the company's management buy-out in July 2005. He has been instrumental in projects such as the delivery of a £14million factory for Sortex, which was the first relocation project necessitated due to the creation of London's Olympic park. Other projects include St Modwen's £150million redevelopment of Bognor Regis town centre and Prologis' £40million Dartford Park, which includes a new logistics facility for Sainsbury.
McCourt joined DBK in 2006 from Orange and has led the growth of its data centre division. His projects include three major data centre projects for Sentrum in London, with a total capital expenditure of over £500 million.
Clark, 28, now DBK's youngest Associate Director, is a Party Wall specialist working in DBK's Birmingham-based Property Services dept. His work in training and developing graduates is regarded as the backbone of the team's growth in the past three years, and a key reason behind his promotion.
Nolan is a specialist in affordable housing negotiations for developers and landowners and also advises on mixed-use development proposals. Nolan accompanies Clark in being promoted to an associate director within DBK's Birmingham office.
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has appointed Andrew Yates as the new joint head of the law firm's regeneration and public sector group. He will join as a partner based within the real estate practice.
Yates was previously a partner at Pinsent Masons and is well known in the market for leading large teams on high profile regeneration and public sector projects.
His appointment underlines BLP's commitment to the real estate sector and the growth of the firm's reputation in relation to major regeneration projects, such as the Paradise Street scheme in Liverpool.
BLP's wider real estate team was named as the Property Team of the Year at the British Legal Awards 2007 and its approach of offering clients the full range of real estate legal services while working with other practice groups across the firm to advise on complex, multi-disciplinary and high value assignments is continuing to attract prestigious clients.
Yates, who will lead the regeneration and public sector team with Lesley-Anne Avis, joins a number of other high profile real estate specialists who have joined BLP in the past few years.
Former nursing home manager Angela Ames has been appointed regional care manager by Retirement Villages.She will be supporting care director Paul Walsh in ensuring all Retirement Villages' care staff and teams employ best practice throughout its villages.
Ames is confident her nursing and management background will stand her in good stead for the role which will see her travelling between the company's care villages from Lincolnshire to Truro in Cornwall.
"I know what it's like to be working on the ground and I understand the challenges managers face," she said. "I am very excited about my new role and passing on my experience and expertise to ensure Retirement Villages continues to provide the very best service to every resident, whatever their care requirements."
Retirement Villages is one of the leading developers of age-exclusive communities. While residents live in their own home, residential care services are available if and when required.
Posted by Show House
in Adrian Hewitt, Andrew Yates, Angela Ames, Cliff Meyler, DBK Group, Ebele Akojie, Greg Cooper, Howard Sharp, Ivor Lafford, Iwan Jones, Jason Hill, Mike Nolan, Moat, Movers and Shakers, Neil Grocock, Nigel Bennett, Partners and Leighton and Henley Ltd, Patrick McCourt, Persimmon Homes, Peter Rand, Philip Davies, Places for People, Redrow, Retirement Villages, Savills, Stuart Clark, Tim Downing, Urban Renaissance Villages on Fri 1 Aug 2008
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