Ward Hadaway property team builds on success

Jun 3 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE nine-strong public sector property team at law firm Ward Hadaway has completed transactions with a development value of more than £800m over the past year.

The team’s expertise in the public sector has been in great demand.

Over the past year the team has worked on schemes ranging from new hospitals, health centres and community facilities to new schools and urban regeneration schemes from Tyneside and County Durham through Yorkshire and the Midlands and down to London.

Simon Priestley, partner and head of the team at Ward Hadaway, said: “This has been an incredibly busy year. Our team worked on a wide range of projects.

“Our reputation for completing complex and often pioneering public sector property projects on budget and often within very tight timescales is clearly spreading nationwide.

“It has been really rewarding to work with some of the finest people in the public sector on these schemes over the past year which has, of course, considerably strengthened and broadened our own expertise.”

In the healthcare sector the team provided the support that helped secure the site and development agreement to underpin the £500m ‘Momentum’ Outline Business case scheme for a new hospital on Teesside.

The team also completed the St Luke’s Hospital scheme in Middlesbrough, a new mental health facility next to the current hospital in Marton Road.

Elsewhere in the sector, the team advised on a new mental health hospital in Durham City, a primary care centre in Stanley, County Durham and the transfer of services and staff from Hartlepool Primary Care Trust and Stockton-on-Tees Teaching Primary Care Trust to North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.

In the education sector, the team has advised on a large number of school building projects under the umbrella of the Government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

The team’s work with Nottingham City Council and the authority’s partners will help to see five new schools being built in the city with another school substantially refurbished.

Forthcoming projects for the team include LIFT healthcare schemes in Newcastle and Sheffield and a major regeneration scheme on Tyneside.