Property

“Knowledgeable, responsive and easy-to-reach lawyers.” Chambers & Partners

Experience

• Acting for Transport for London, London Underground Limited and Crossrail on the over-station development at the new Liverpool Street ‘Crossrail’ station. Advice will involve complex procurement arrangements, construction agreements, leases, deeds of easement and site sharing arrangements for the purposes of protecting the ongoing operation of the Liverpool Street Station during the development phase of this large project. This work was part of overall £15bn Crossrail project in London, but precise value of this element unknown at this stage.
  We are also acting for London Buses on the property aspects of the protection of bus routes in the reconfiguration of a west London industrial estate.

• Acting for Bouygues UK on the acquisition of a site on the south coast (Portsmouth) for the construction of a 22 storey hotel and residential development. Value subject to completion of development, but expected to be in excess of £30m.

• Acting for Adgen Energy on two renewable energy anaerobic digestion projects. One of the projects is in Lincolnshire and the other is in Nottinghamshire. Adgen Energy is a renewable energy project development company, formed to develop and finance renewable energy plants across the UK.

• The Housing and Regeneration team was successful in its tender to the Aster Group to assist in a group-wide review of Aster's existing land holdings. This will involve reviewing the legal aspects of up to 200 sites to assess their potential for further development.

• Acting for the Science and Technology Facilities Council in connection with the acquisition of the long leasehold interest in the Electron building at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. The acquisition involved a host of largely unforeseen complications which needed to be resolved within a finite and short timeframe.
  A multitude of parties involved in the transaction meant that the Manches’ team were required to take a leading role in the management of the transaction, having regard to the interests of the various parties involved, in order to ensure that the property was acquired within the limited time period available. The building will contribute to the work of the International Space Innovation Centre,a project which has links to the new UK SpaceAgency, announced by Lord Mandelson just two days before completion of the purchase.
   

• Acting for Mount Green Housing Association Limited on the provision by Royal Bank of Scotland plc of new term loan and revolving credit facilities of up to £47,000,000. Mount Green is a growing community housing association based in the South-East of England and will use the facilities to refinance existing borrowings and continue its expansion, development of new housing and investment in existing homes.



• We acted for Blackheath Cator Estate Residents Limited, which owns and manages the estate roads on a private gated estate comprising around 1,500 residences, in its defence of proceedings brought by the owner of an adjoining sports field.  The High Court proceedings were issued in response to the company's objections to a planning application for the development of around 150 units on the sports field.  This application was linked to the Kidbrooke Development Area regeneration scheme.  The proceedings, in which the claimant developer was seeking a range of injunctions and declarations relating to access rights, were settled favourably at the start of a 3-day trial.



• Acting for Nexeon Limited in moving their headquarters to Milton Park in Abingdon from Culham Science Centre and dealing with the arrangements for the provision of the state of the art fit out of the new premises. This complicated transaction involved extensive negotiations of complicated ongoing inducements to take the lease from the existing tenant Akzo Nobel together with varying the lease so that it was acceptable to the incoming client.



• Acting for London Underground and Transport for London on the provision of a new bus station and reconfigured station entrance at London Bridge Underground Station in connection with the proposed redevelopment of New London Bridge House.



• Acting on additional interface issues arising from the Thameslink upgrade programme, the Shard development (which involves construction of what is hoped to be Western Europe’s tallest building) and Network Rail’s London Bridge Masterplan development.



• Acting for London Underground on the restructuring of lease interests to facilitate the redevelopment of a prime site in Knightsbridge.



• Sale and leaseback of the main Ruskin College building and grounds in the centre of Oxford which enabled the bespoke redevelopment of premises elsewhere to facilitate the college relocating. This transaction involved complex arrangements in relation to stage payments and short and long term occupancy arrangements for the college whilst their redevelopment takes place.



• Acting for Owen Mumford Limited on the acquisition of a large plot of land at Windrush Park, Witney for future redevelopment.



• Acting for Bouygues Development Limited in respect of a £17 million development of a landmark archive library and housing scheme in Maidstone. This involved negotiating and agreeing terms with the County Council and two different housing associations who were all stakeholders in the scheme.