The Deal - Issue 3 by JanuarysCambridge

Issue 3 September 2014

Delivering Property Solutions januarys.co.uk

Growth in East Anglia Providing insight into our regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s booming market

focus on: Expansion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; We branch out to Bury St Edmunds by acquiring John Popham Planning

welcome It is hard to believe that the summer is nearly over, but I am pleased to report that it has been a very favourable period for us and no doubt many others involved in property in and around the Cambridge area.

contents 3

Popham acquisition Our exciting addition to the Januarys offering

4&5 Mapping out growth Find out where the big deals are being done

Our theme for this edition of “The Deal” is that of growth; in the overall economy, within a number of businesses and for key clients and suppliers throughout the region, and also within our own team.

6 Planning News of a resounding victory in Waterbeach

There seems to remain strong business confidence, and continuing signs of investment across a number of sectors. Through focussed property advice, we have helped a number of local and regional businesses to expand and here we showcase a number of transactions that we have been involved with.

7 MARKET INSIGHT Bury St Edmunds’ vital statistics

We have also added to our own “stable” with a very exciting new acquisition of a niche planning consultancy in Bury St Edmunds, John Popham Planning. This will enable us to increase our geographical spread within the region to, we believe, the considerable advantage of our clients.

8 Community Rounding up a very busy summer of events!

As you will read, however, it has not been all work and no play, and we also detail some of the community and social engagements that we have undertaken in the last quarter. We look forward to continuing to work with you all in the coming months.

Colin Brown, Managing Director

Our team is growing... We’ve expanded our planning and property services teams with two new recruits.

2 | The Deal

Harriet Stanton

Cheryl Campbell

Harriet has graduated from Anglia Ruskin University and joins in her new role as property services administrator. Harriet said: “I’m learning a lot thanks to the strong work ethic here.”

Cheryl has recently relocated to Cambridge after a successful career as a practice administrator for esteemed Worcestershire based architects GAJ UK. She is now one of our planning administrators.

POPHAM ACQUISITION

Januarys branches out to

Bury St Edmunds

Richard Sykes-Popham, John Popham and Colin Brown celebrate the deal

IN order to expand our offering into Suffolk we have acquired an established planning consultancy in Bury St Edmunds. We seized the opportunity to acquire John Popham Planning after being privately approached, and the deal was completed at the end of June. The business, which is based at The Old Wool Warehouse on St Andrews Street South, will continue to trade as John Popham Planning for the foreseeable future but as a readily identifiable subsidiary of Januarys. Colin Brown, Januarys’ managing director, commented: “We see this exciting acquisition as a significant opportunity to highlight our full service offering to the vibrant property market in Bury. The town is in the heart of the region and John Popham Planning is a thriving business with an excellent reputation and a strong market share. The deal made considerable business sense to us.” Commenting on the deal, John Popham said: “There are great synergies between our planning offer in Bury and the services already provided by Januarys in a broader context throughout the Eastern region. We are very excited at the prospect of working in close partnership with our new colleagues.” The team at John Popham Planning specialises in difficult cases and complements the experienced planning team based at our head office in central Cambridge. John Popham will act as a consultant to the firm and his son, Richard Sykes-Popham becomes an associate.

“Becoming part of Januarys has ensured the investment needed for the business to grow, and has enabled us to focus on providing our clients with the best advice and service.” Richard Skyes-Popham, Associate

Issue 3 | 3

MAPPING OUT GROWTH

Expanding local businesses Three Pillars Business Park, Sutton

March

Hinchingbrooke Hospital We secured the letting of 6,200 sq ft to Hong Kong based Aluminium Scaffold Towers last year and, due to accelerated growth, they have now expanded into 12,400 sq ft within the unit which they use for storage, distribution and office space.

Sutton We have been involved in selling part of the Hinchingbrooke Hospital site for development into around 50 homes, in a ‘subject to planning’ deal. One of the car parks is being sold to Almaren developers, who were selected after a bidding process. The deal is expected to be completed early next year.

Huntingdon

Edinburgh House, St John’s Innovation Park

Located in Cambridge’s prime science and technology hub, laboratory space on St John’s is highly sought after. We negotiated an excellent rate to let four lab units, together totalling more than 5,000 sq ft, to growing organisations Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge Medical Innovations.

Cambridge

Market Place, Royston

Royston

We’ve helped Royston Town Council increase its property portfolio by successfully negotiating the freehold sale of the historic Market Place in the town centre. The investment has been sold with a current market rent, allowing strong prospects for future growth.

4 | The Deal

MAPPING OUT GROWTH

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had a very busy summer, helping organisations across our region to grow. Our key area of work is increasing to form a 30 mile radius around Cambridge. Iconix Park, Sawston Arthur Park, March

On behalf of the Howard Property Group, we helped clinical trial logistics company BioCair relocate their UK headquarters into 11,000 sq ft at Iconix One. The premises has been fitted out to accommodate a control dispatch area, office space and storage warehouse. Further space at the park is still available but filling quickly.

Expanding design and construction company FPP Facades has instructed us to market this pre-let and spec build development scheme. The 20,000 sq ft of industrial and office units are on offer in a local commercial market which is desperately short of new Grade A space.

Discovery House, Vision Park, Histon

Bury St Edmuds

PROVING LAYOUT

Ridgeons, Saffron Walden

On behalf of our clients Turnstone Estates, we relocated the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) into a 9,000 sq ft building at Vision Park. Off the back of this letting we then traded the investment of this property on to RO Group, and this was completed mid-September.

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Sawston

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John Popham acquisition, Bury St Edmunds

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Saffron Walden

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gained outline planning permission for Ridgeons to transform a 32 acre site on Ashdon Road. The expansion plans include a new store of around 40,000 sq ft, 167 residential units, a small retail store, a family pub/restaurant, a hotel and around eight acres of offices and warehouses. We are expanding our offering into Suffolk by acquiring John Popham Planning. TITLE:

CLIENT:

SCALE AT A1:

585.02 / 13C

PROJECT:

Ridgeons Ltd

north

August 2013

DATE:

Land North of Ashdon Road, Saffron Walden

PROVING LAYOUT

1:1000

Issue 3 | 5

PLANNING

Waterbeach planning victory

sets precedent We have won planning permission for a housing development in Waterbeach in a landmark decision that could result in significant further housing consents being allowed in South Cambridgeshire.

Our planning team successfully argued that South Cambridgeshire District Council could not demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites; the Planning Inspectorate concluded that the council could demonstrate only three and a half years’ supply. Therefore, planning permission has been granted for 60 houses on land to the west of Cody Road and north of Bannold Road, outside the village’s existing development framework boundary. Peter McKeown, planning consultant, commented: “This decision was a complex one to achieve and deliver. It took place over a period of 18 months, including a

public inquiry, so we are extremely pleased with the result. It means that a number of additional homes are going to be provided within the district. You can anticipate that a number of further applications will be submitted on similarly located sites in the coming weeks.” We have been involved with the Waterbeach development from the beginning, initially acting as the landowner’s agents and then being asked by the developer, Manor Oak Homes, to secure permission. We have now been instructed to sell the site.

“This victory was very much a team effort and Januarys played their part superbly. They were very professional at all times and their communication and attention to detail were excellent.” Will Main, Owner/Director of Manor Oak Homes

6 | The Deal

MARKET INSIGHT

Focus on:

Bury St Edmunds Commercial space is increasingly hard to come by in the heart of Suffolk. Here’s a look at the figures* comparing Q3 2013 to the same period this year:

Retail space availability

Office space availability

Industrial space availability

Availability rates dropped from

6.2% to 4.5%

8.5% to 4.4% 20.4% to 17%

Sq ft dropped from

65k to 34k

303k to 289k

71k

52k

“We think Bury St Edmunds is an excellent place to be investing in. Over the last three years the market town has seen an increase in take up across the following three sectors; Retail, Offices and Industrial. Vacancy rates for retail and offices are now lower than rates pre-recession, industrial vacancy rates for the past five years have remained constant at just under 10%, and asking rents across all three sectors at the end of Q3 for 2014 are showing early signs of increasing.

“Over the last year the amount of available square footage has decreased across all three sectors. The best performing sector is offices which saw a take up of 31,811 sq ft. in this period. “Bury St Edmunds’ investment market is also very strong. We recently secured an investment sale of Olding Road achieving £2.35million. We are also involved with a number of exciting acquisitions across the town.” Will Rooke, Januarys Director

*Based on a 2.5 mile radius around Bury St Edmunds.

Issue 3 | 7

COMMUNITY

Fundraising round-up for... Property pros strike gold… again! Cambridge companies helped us raise a phenomenal £1,500 for our nominated charity in our second annual treasure hunt. We sent businesses out onto the streets of Cambridge on a course that mirrored the Tour de France route through the city. The teams searched for clues, tested their knowledge and experienced some of the city’s lesser known beauty spots. DPA Architects were announced as winners of the gold baton at the after party which took place at Vodka Revolution on Downing Street, where Januarys’ office was based for many years. Dixon-Phillips Solicitors was awarded the silver baton and the Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce team was awarded the bronze.

Donna Talbot from the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, the winners DPA Architects and Graham Smith.

Nick’s triathlon Our very own associate, Nick Muncey, supported Arthur Rank by competing in a Cambridgeshire sprint triathlon. Nick was one of 240 people to take part in the gruelling event, which consisted of a 400m swim, 20km bike ride and 5km run. The triathlon Nick Muncey took place on Sunday 20 July in the Image credit: James Rudd backdrop of Kimbolton’s impressive school. Nick was the 211th athlete to cross the finish line with a final time of 1 hour and 34 minutes.

Football fundraiser lifts spirits We raised £400 for Arthur Rank as part of a fun, football themed event during the World Cup. Our clients gathered to watch England’s final group match against Costa Rica at The Burleigh Arms on Newmarket Road, which was transformed with flamboyant carnival decorations. The grand total was raised via generous donations from our clients through some fun football related games.

More football…. Alongside our sister company Bradshaws, we got out of our armchairs to compete in a five-a-side football competition to raise money for the World Child Cancer charity. We reached the quarter finals of the plate competition and everybody enjoyed themselves, despite getting soaked! The £4,350 raised on the day will pay for 60 courses of chemotherapy needed by children in Malawi, who will be treated by a trained Clockwise from top left – Greg Loizou, oncology nurse. The event Michael Westwood, Anton Frost, was organised by UK property Will Rooke, Justin Bainton, Stephen company Wrenbridge. Brooks and Paul Belton.

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MICHa wEStw El OOD

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JOHN RuSSE ll

JuStIN BaINt ON Paul BEltO N

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Matt HaRE

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Dates in our diary Sept 21 2014 Sept 24 2014 Oct 15 2014 Nov 26 2014

Cambridge colleges – 9:30am Chariots of Fire charity relay race Cambridge Airport – 10am Cambridge B2B Exhibition Apex in Bury St Edmunds – 5pm John Popham/Januarys launch party Cambridge University RUFC – 12noon Steele Bodgers