Big six full of eastern promise
Profiles From a restaurateur to a regeneration expert, a select group are at the forefront of the region’s revival. By Louise Duffield
|
Tony Pinks
|
|
Investment director, Lace Market Properties
|
|
Education University of the West Indies
1966-1968 Accountancy, Metal Box Company, London
1968-1971 Engineering, Honda and Michelin, France
1971-1984 Sole practitioner, surveying and estate agency, Donaldson & Co, London
1984-2001 Consultant and then partner to surveyors Walker Walton Hanson, later sold to Savills, Nottingham
2001-present Lace Market Properties
Lifestyle Aged 57, his interests include reading, travel, theatre and golf
Breathing life into derelict or underutilised buildings and their surroundings is the speciality of Lace Market Properties, which has created more than 1,000 apartments in Nottingham since it started in 1998.
“We buy in uncool areas and then create an environment that everyone wants to live in,” says Tony Pinks, investment director at Lace Market Properties. “It’s about setting a trend rather than following a fashion.”
The firm is at the forefront of city living in Nottingham, which is booming in areas such as the Lace Market, the former heart of the lace industry. LMP’s work has included the conversion of numerous historic buildings into residential use, such as the former Cigar Factory overlooking The Park estate, which has been transformed into 35 flats.
LMP is now constructing new-builds, including Nottingham’s largest apartment complex, Litmus on Huntingdon Street. Due to complete in mid-2006, the project is seen as a key part of the Eastside regeneration area, and will offer 296 one- and two-bed flats.
“In six years, we have gone from converting old mill buildings into six apartments to handling the biggest new-build development in Nottingham,” says Pinks
|
|
.Richard Tobias
|
|
Land and property development manager, East Midlands Development Agency
|
|
Education Newcastle University
Professional qualifications: BA (Hons) Town and Country Planning
1989 London Borough of Barnet
1989-1995 Planning assistant, local government in the West Midlands
1995-1999 English Partnerships, various positions
1999-present East Midlands Development Agency
Lifestyle Aged 36, his interests include family and walking
Regional development agency EMDA actively supports all the smaller, individual regeneration bodies across the East Midlands.
Land and property development manager Richard Tobias’s two key areas are Leicester and Corby, and he works with Leicester Regeneration Company and Catalyst Corby on the string of schemes that are under way to boost these areas.
EMDA owns several sites in Leicester in the Abbey Meadows district, where, among other things, a new science and technology park is planned to encourage and nurture spin-off firms and research-based companies from local universities.
Tobias is also involved in appraising the £31.75m Performing Arts and Conference Centre project, which is the flagship scheme of Leicester’s newly designated cultural quarter. Construction is likely to begin early in 2005, and take up to two and a half years.
In Corby, where plans have been made to regenerate the town centre, construct a direct rail service from the town to London St Pancras, provide a range of employment sites and double the population to more than 100,000 within the next 30 years, EMDA owns little land, but is involved in funding vital projects, such as the new civic hub.
“We are one of the major supporters of all the regeneration companies, not only Leicester and Corby, but also emerging projects in Derby,” says Tobias. “We have done a lot of work with Nottingham Regeneration Company too.”
EMDA has a portfolio of former coalfield sites it owns and manages on behalf of English Partnerships, mainly in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
|
|
Scott Davidson
|
|
Managing director of the Fiducia Group, managing director and founder of Henry Davidson Developments
|
|
Education Coventry Technical College, and what is now Coventry University
Professional qualifications: BSc (Hons) in Construction, MRICS, MCIOB
1986-1989 Regional unit manager, Bowmer & Kirkland in Derby
1989-1991 Business unit manager, Shepherd Construction in Grantham
1991-1992 Divisional manager of North West region, Bowmer & Kirkland in Warrington
1992-present Henry Davidson Developments, managing director
Lifestyle Aged 42, his interests include tennis, health and fitness
With turnover expected to reach £50m in the next three years, the Nottingham-based Fiducia Group is set to become a significant player in the East Midlands and beyond.
The holding company of mixed-use developer Henry Davidson Developments and industrial developer Eden Park Developments, Fiducia was created in 2001, and to begin with operated out of Leicester.
Joint managing director Scott Davidson, who shares the role with Eden Park Developments managing director Paul Bagshaw, says: “We are in the market raising finance via an equity pool that has been put together by the Nottingham office of accountants PKF and stockbrokers Goy Harris Cartwright & Co, based in Leicester.”
Eden Park Developments specialises in premises for the institution and owner-occupier market and has secured around 1m sq ft of industrial space since it was launched in 2000. It is involved in key schemes in the East Midlands including the development of a 210,000 sq ft industrial unit at Centrum 100 Business Park, Burton-upon-Trent, scheduled to start on site in early 2005. EPD has also been involved in taking a large, undisclosed, site in north Nottinghamshire through the Local Plan.
Henry Davidson Developments specialises in mixed-use property schemes, ranging from the usual retail, leisure and residential to healthcare and community facilities. It is preferred developer for a £30m mixed-use development in the heart of St Albans.
“We are doing quite a bit more town-centre work at the moment,” says Davidson. “We see the East Midlands market towns, like Melton Mowbray, as having opportunities, so we are looking a little closer to home.”
Schemes completed this year that Henry Davidson has been involved with include one at Grange Park, Northamptonshire – a £6.9m local centre featuring a library, supermarket, doctor’s surgery, pharmacy, day nursery, takeaways and eight flats – and Riverside in Peterborough – a £7m neighbourhood centre at the gateway to a new 900-home residential development. The 2.5-acre site features a supermarket, nursery, doctor’s surgery and other units, as well as 12 one and two-bedroom apartments.
|
|
Nick Sladen
|
|
Managing director, Sladen Estates
|
|
Sladen Estates managing director Nick Sladen reckons his business is currently one of the biggest in the speculative development and construction market in the East Midlands.
Based just outside Nottingham, but with plans to move to The Village at junction 28 of the M1 in North Nottinghamshire on one of its own development sites early next year, the firm carries out the majority of its work in the East and West Midlands, and South Yorkshire.
Sladen, a bricklayer by trade who refuses to wear a tie, says: “We’re doing a lot of speculative building. If we think it’ll work we’ll have a go at it. We like to look at industrial and we like to look in areas where there is high unemployment and close to motorway links, but we don’t specialise in any one type of development.”
The portfolio includes a number of projects near junction 28, such as a 56,000 sq ft warehouse at Station Park and 125,000 sq ft of industrial and distribution space in units of more than 50,000 sq ft at Fulwood 28.
Education Basford Hall College, Nottingham
Professional qualifications: City & Guilds in brickwork; advanced craft certificate in brickwork; HNC in concrete technology; HNC in construction technology
1980 Indentured apprenticeship, E Wheat & Son, Nottingham
1985-1986 Bricklayer, Herbert Baggaley Construction, Nottingham
1986-1987 Site manager, H & E Loach, Nottingham
1987-1988 Technical sales representative, Bullock & Driffill, Nottingham
1988-1991 Business development director, Ford Projects, Nottingham
1991-1995 Business development manager, Professional Design & Build Services, Nottingham
1993-1999 Development director, PLC Development Company, Nottingham1999-present Managing director, Sladen Estates, Nottingham
Lifestyle Aged 40, his interests include motorcycling
|
|
Ashley Walter
|
|
Restaurateur at World Service and Geisha in Nottingham and Oak House, Stamford, and nightclub co-proprietor of the Lizard Lounge, Nottingham
|
|
Education Harry Carlton School, East Leake, Nottingham
1994-present Partner in the Lizard Lounge nightclub, the Lace Market, Nottingham
2000-present Partner in World Service restaurant, Nottingham
2002 Consultant to Saltwater restaurant, The Cornerhouse, Nottingham
2003-present Partner Oak House restaurant, Stamford
2002-2004 Creative director CAST, Nottingham2004 Co-proprietor Geisha restaurant, Nottingham
Lifestyle Aged 37, his interests include travel, eating, and cinema
Restaurateur Ashley Walter has helped put the East Midlands on the map as far as fine dining and stylish surroundings are concerned. His Nottingham restaurant World Service – which he co-owns with three others – has scooped best restaurant in the city for two years running. He has got his fingers in other pies too – it’s 10 years since he jointly opened the Lizard Lounge, a club in the city’s Lace Market area, and for the past couple of years he has been creative director and consultant on the £1.2m public/private partnership to transform the eating area at Nottingham Playhouse. CAST – a modern British lounge bar with tapas and a delicatessen – opened earlier this year.
The World Service team opened a second restaurant, the Oak House in Stamford, last year, and Walter is also co-proprietor of the recently launched Geisha, an oriental dining room with basement dance floor, in the Lace Market. He hopes to roll out this concept nationally – which would take a Nottingham idea into the national arena.
“People look at Geisha and say Nottingham isn’t ready for that but they said it about the Lizard Lounge and about World Service,” says Walter. “I’m not afraid to raise the stakes.”
Walter gets his inspiration for restaurant design, concept and menus from his travels. “I am obsessed about food fashion and style, and I absorb what I experience, see and read,” he says. “I think that’s so important. You can’t buy style.”
Likewise, he doesn’t believe in standing still. “Just because you have a winning formula doesn’t mean to say it’s going to be winning forever,” he warns.
|
|
Derek Latham
|
|
Principal and founder, Latham Architects
|
|
Education Leicester School of Architecture.Prof qualifications: Diploma in architecture, RIBA; diploma in town and country planning; diploma in landscape design, MLI; inaugural member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, AABC, AHI, FRSA
1968-70 Private practice, London
1970-1974 Architect and housing officerDerby city council
1974-1978 Design and conservation officer, Derbyshire county council
1978-1980 Wood Latham Newton Partnership, Ripley, Derbyshire
1980-present Founder Latham Architects, Derby
Lifestyle Aged 58, his interests include racketball, sailing, riding, cycling and skiing
Over the past 10 years, Derby-based Latham Architects has been in the top 10 practices in the UK when it comes to picking up awards.
Specialising in architecture in sensitive locations, the firm has worked on projects in Sherwood Forest, at Riber Castle in Matlock, Buxton baths and Nottingham Castle.
“We will do any type of use, as long as it’s in a sensitive location,” says Derek Latham, founder of the 40-strong practice, which has specialist teams for urban, conservation, housing and education architecture. “It can be new build in the countryside or city, or the conservation of a listed building, but the key issue is the sensitivity of the site.”
Latham is a regional ambassador for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, a body that aims to improve the quality of design in the built environment, and chair of Opun – a peripatetic architecture centre for the East Midlands, currently operating out of Derby. He is also a board member of Regeneration East Midlands, the organisation that aims to encourage best practice in regeneration.
Latham, author of The Creative Re-use of Building, describes a lot of his firm’s work as catalytic.
“We are not about style or fashion. We are not sexy, but we believe what we do will last a long time,” explains Latham. “Quite a lot of the work we do is timeless – so when people look at it they don’t know when it has been built. To me, that’s the greatest accolade.”
|
Profiles From a restaurateur to a regeneration expert, a select group are at the forefront of the region’s revival. By Louise Duffield
Tony Pinks
Investment director, Lace Market Properties
Education University of the West Indies
1966-1968 Accountancy, Metal Box Company, London
1968-1971 Engineering, Honda and Michelin, France
1971-1984 Sole practitioner, surveying and estate agency, Donaldson & Co, London
1984-2001 Consultant and then partner to surveyors Walker Walton Hanson, later sold to Savills, Nottingham
2001-present Lace Market Properties
Lifestyle Aged 57, his interests include reading, travel, theatre and golf
Breathing life into derelict or underutilised buildings and their surroundings is the speciality of Lace Market Properties, which has created more than 1,000 apartments in Nottingham since it started in 1998.
“We buy in uncool areas and then create an environment that everyone wants to live in,” says Tony Pinks, investment director at Lace Market Properties. “It’s about setting a trend rather than following a fashion.”
The firm is at the forefront of city living in Nottingham, which is booming in areas such as the Lace Market, the former heart of the lace industry. LMP’s work has included the conversion of numerous historic buildings into residential use, such as the former Cigar Factory overlooking The Park estate, which has been transformed into 35 flats.
LMP is now constructing new-builds, including Nottingham’s largest apartment complex, Litmus on Huntingdon Street. Due to complete in mid-2006, the project is seen as a key part of the Eastside regeneration area, and will offer 296 one- and two-bed flats.
“In six years, we have gone from converting old mill buildings into six apartments to handling the biggest new-build development in Nottingham,” says Pinks
.Richard Tobias
Land and property development manager, East Midlands Development Agency
Education Newcastle University
Professional qualifications: BA (Hons) Town and Country Planning
1989 London Borough of Barnet
1989-1995 Planning assistant, local government in the West Midlands
1995-1999 English Partnerships, various positions
1999-present East Midlands Development Agency
Lifestyle Aged 36, his interests include family and walking
Regional development agency EMDA actively supports all the smaller, individual regeneration bodies across the East Midlands.
Land and property development manager Richard Tobias’s two key areas are Leicester and Corby, and he works with Leicester Regeneration Company and Catalyst Corby on the string of schemes that are under way to boost these areas.
EMDA owns several sites in Leicester in the Abbey Meadows district, where, among other things, a new science and technology park is planned to encourage and nurture spin-off firms and research-based companies from local universities.
Tobias is also involved in appraising the £31.75m Performing Arts and Conference Centre project, which is the flagship scheme of Leicester’s newly designated cultural quarter. Construction is likely to begin early in 2005, and take up to two and a half years.
In Corby, where plans have been made to regenerate the town centre, construct a direct rail service from the town to London St Pancras, provide a range of employment sites and double the population to more than 100,000 within the next 30 years, EMDA owns little land, but is involved in funding vital projects, such as the new civic hub.
“We are one of the major supporters of all the regeneration companies, not only Leicester and Corby, but also emerging projects in Derby,” says Tobias. “We have done a lot of work with Nottingham Regeneration Company too.”
EMDA has a portfolio of former coalfield sites it owns and manages on behalf of English Partnerships, mainly in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Scott Davidson
Managing director of the Fiducia Group, managing director and founder of Henry Davidson Developments
Education Coventry Technical College, and what is now Coventry University
Professional qualifications: BSc (Hons) in Construction, MRICS, MCIOB
1986-1989 Regional unit manager, Bowmer & Kirkland in Derby
1989-1991 Business unit manager, Shepherd Construction in Grantham
1991-1992 Divisional manager of North West region, Bowmer & Kirkland in Warrington
1992-present Henry Davidson Developments, managing director
Lifestyle Aged 42, his interests include tennis, health and fitness
With turnover expected to reach £50m in the next three years, the Nottingham-based Fiducia Group is set to become a significant player in the East Midlands and beyond.
The holding company of mixed-use developer Henry Davidson Developments and industrial developer Eden Park Developments, Fiducia was created in 2001, and to begin with operated out of Leicester.
Joint managing director Scott Davidson, who shares the role with Eden Park Developments managing director Paul Bagshaw, says: “We are in the market raising finance via an equity pool that has been put together by the Nottingham office of accountants PKF and stockbrokers Goy Harris Cartwright & Co, based in Leicester.”
Eden Park Developments specialises in premises for the institution and owner-occupier market and has secured around 1m sq ft of industrial space since it was launched in 2000. It is involved in key schemes in the East Midlands including the development of a 210,000 sq ft industrial unit at Centrum 100 Business Park, Burton-upon-Trent, scheduled to start on site in early 2005. EPD has also been involved in taking a large, undisclosed, site in north Nottinghamshire through the Local Plan.
Henry Davidson Developments specialises in mixed-use property schemes, ranging from the usual retail, leisure and residential to healthcare and community facilities. It is preferred developer for a £30m mixed-use development in the heart of St Albans.
“We are doing quite a bit more town-centre work at the moment,” says Davidson. “We see the East Midlands market towns, like Melton Mowbray, as having opportunities, so we are looking a little closer to home.”
Schemes completed this year that Henry Davidson has been involved with include one at Grange Park, Northamptonshire – a £6.9m local centre featuring a library, supermarket, doctor’s surgery, pharmacy, day nursery, takeaways and eight flats – and Riverside in Peterborough – a £7m neighbourhood centre at the gateway to a new 900-home residential development. The 2.5-acre site features a supermarket, nursery, doctor’s surgery and other units, as well as 12 one and two-bedroom apartments.
Nick Sladen
Managing director, Sladen Estates
Sladen Estates managing director Nick Sladen reckons his business is currently one of the biggest in the speculative development and construction market in the East Midlands.
Based just outside Nottingham, but with plans to move to The Village at junction 28 of the M1 in North Nottinghamshire on one of its own development sites early next year, the firm carries out the majority of its work in the East and West Midlands, and South Yorkshire.
Sladen, a bricklayer by trade who refuses to wear a tie, says: “We’re doing a lot of speculative building. If we think it’ll work we’ll have a go at it. We like to look at industrial and we like to look in areas where there is high unemployment and close to motorway links, but we don’t specialise in any one type of development.”
The portfolio includes a number of projects near junction 28, such as a 56,000 sq ft warehouse at Station Park and 125,000 sq ft of industrial and distribution space in units of more than 50,000 sq ft at Fulwood 28.
Education Basford Hall College, Nottingham
Professional qualifications: City & Guilds in brickwork; advanced craft certificate in brickwork; HNC in concrete technology; HNC in construction technology
1980 Indentured apprenticeship, E Wheat & Son, Nottingham
1985-1986 Bricklayer, Herbert Baggaley Construction, Nottingham
1986-1987 Site manager, H & E Loach, Nottingham
1987-1988 Technical sales representative, Bullock & Driffill, Nottingham
1988-1991 Business development director, Ford Projects, Nottingham
1991-1995 Business development manager, Professional Design & Build Services, Nottingham
1993-1999 Development director, PLC Development Company, Nottingham1999-present Managing director, Sladen Estates, Nottingham
Lifestyle Aged 40, his interests include motorcycling
Ashley Walter
Restaurateur at World Service and Geisha in Nottingham and Oak House, Stamford, and nightclub co-proprietor of the Lizard Lounge, Nottingham
Education Harry Carlton School, East Leake, Nottingham
1994-present Partner in the Lizard Lounge nightclub, the Lace Market, Nottingham
2000-present Partner in World Service restaurant, Nottingham
2002 Consultant to Saltwater restaurant, The Cornerhouse, Nottingham
2003-present Partner Oak House restaurant, Stamford
2002-2004 Creative director CAST, Nottingham2004 Co-proprietor Geisha restaurant, Nottingham
Lifestyle Aged 37, his interests include travel, eating, and cinema
Restaurateur Ashley Walter has helped put the East Midlands on the map as far as fine dining and stylish surroundings are concerned. His Nottingham restaurant World Service – which he co-owns with three others – has scooped best restaurant in the city for two years running. He has got his fingers in other pies too – it’s 10 years since he jointly opened the Lizard Lounge, a club in the city’s Lace Market area, and for the past couple of years he has been creative director and consultant on the £1.2m public/private partnership to transform the eating area at Nottingham Playhouse. CAST – a modern British lounge bar with tapas and a delicatessen – opened earlier this year.
The World Service team opened a second restaurant, the Oak House in Stamford, last year, and Walter is also co-proprietor of the recently launched Geisha, an oriental dining room with basement dance floor, in the Lace Market. He hopes to roll out this concept nationally – which would take a Nottingham idea into the national arena.
“People look at Geisha and say Nottingham isn’t ready for that but they said it about the Lizard Lounge and about World Service,” says Walter. “I’m not afraid to raise the stakes.”
Walter gets his inspiration for restaurant design, concept and menus from his travels. “I am obsessed about food fashion and style, and I absorb what I experience, see and read,” he says. “I think that’s so important. You can’t buy style.”
Likewise, he doesn’t believe in standing still. “Just because you have a winning formula doesn’t mean to say it’s going to be winning forever,” he warns.
Derek Latham
Principal and founder, Latham Architects
Education Leicester School of Architecture.Prof qualifications: Diploma in architecture, RIBA; diploma in town and country planning; diploma in landscape design, MLI; inaugural member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, AABC, AHI, FRSA
1968-70 Private practice, London
1970-1974 Architect and housing officerDerby city council
1974-1978 Design and conservation officer, Derbyshire county council
1978-1980 Wood Latham Newton Partnership, Ripley, Derbyshire
1980-present Founder Latham Architects, Derby
Lifestyle Aged 58, his interests include racketball, sailing, riding, cycling and skiing
Over the past 10 years, Derby-based Latham Architects has been in the top 10 practices in the UK when it comes to picking up awards.
Specialising in architecture in sensitive locations, the firm has worked on projects in Sherwood Forest, at Riber Castle in Matlock, Buxton baths and Nottingham Castle.
“We will do any type of use, as long as it’s in a sensitive location,” says Derek Latham, founder of the 40-strong practice, which has specialist teams for urban, conservation, housing and education architecture. “It can be new build in the countryside or city, or the conservation of a listed building, but the key issue is the sensitivity of the site.”
Latham is a regional ambassador for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, a body that aims to improve the quality of design in the built environment, and chair of Opun – a peripatetic architecture centre for the East Midlands, currently operating out of Derby. He is also a board member of Regeneration East Midlands, the organisation that aims to encourage best practice in regeneration.
Latham, author of The Creative Re-use of Building, describes a lot of his firm’s work as catalytic.
“We are not about style or fashion. We are not sexy, but we believe what we do will last a long time,” explains Latham. “Quite a lot of the work we do is timeless – so when people look at it they don’t know when it has been built. To me, that’s the greatest accolade.”
