BQ Yorkshire Issue 02 by We Are UMi

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ISSUE TWO: AUTUMN 2009

ON THE CARDS Dean Hoyle’s Card Factory - sending greetings to the nation WE CAN SEE CLEARLY Ultralase - a Yorkshire success story GRAND DESIGNS? The rows blighting Bradford’s big city plans DRAMA QUEEN Susannah Daley’s business is all theatre

ISSUE TWO: AUTUMN 2009: YORKSHIRE EDITION

PORTRAITS IN THE ATTIK

Attik’s James Sommerville on the growth of the global design agency that began with pictures on pavements BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS

YORKSHIRE EDITION

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BUSINESS QUARTER: AUTUMN 09: ISSUE TWO Anyone for seconds? Seconds of anything are always a hard thing to pull off. I remember our drama teacher at primary school warning me that while I might find my first term at secondary school absolutely wonderful, it would be the second term that would really be the testing ground. By then, she said, the novelty would be gone, it would be miserable January weather, and I would have realised the hard graft ahead. How right she was. I have been thinking about that a lot while we have been putting together this, our second issue of BQ Yorkshire. The weather hasn’t been quite as bad as it can be in January (although sometimes it wasn’t that far off). But after the last issue, which saw us interview Philip Meeson from Jet2 and Richard Jackson among others, we wanted to be absolutely sure we would have another exciting range of personalities to uncover this time too. I certainly think we have managed it. We have James Sommerville, a man who has taken Yorkshire design talent right around the world from an attic in Huddersfield. We have Susannah Daley, a woman who has proved that you do not have to be haemorrhaging money to make it in the world of theatre – quite the opposite, in fact. And we have Tony Veverka, the man who has been quietly growing Ultralase, one of Yorkshire’s secret success stories. We have Chris Hopkins of Ploughcroft, who can draw an interesting analogy between building a business and his favourite pastime – bodybuilding. And we have Dean Hoyle, the man who famously started out selling birthday cards out of a van (after a couple of more racy ventures that we won’t mention here), and

then built his business up into the £175m phenomenon that is Card Factory. He’s just moved into the real elite by taking a controlling interest in a football club – his local team, Huddersfield Town. We hope you agree they are all personalities worth your time to read about. Because we also like to cover the property scene, this issue we have also taken a look at the controversy raging in Bradford over that city’s development plans. There is certainly a storm raging there, and the wildly opposing views aired here expose the deeply held opinions held on all sides. Thank you for your response to BQ. Certainly, from all your very complimentary emails, we seem to have kept your interest up. We welcome your views and comments, and we are also delighted to receive your suggestions for personalities we might profiling within these pages, so do please keep the comments coming in, by email, to peterb@bq-magazine.co.uk

CONTACTS ROOM501 LTD Christopher March Managing Director e: chris@room501.co.uk George Cheung Director e: george@room501.co.uk Euan Underwood Director e: euan@room501.co.uk Bryan Hoare Director e: bryan@room501.co.uk EDITORIAL Peter Baber Editor e: peterb@bq-magazine.co.uk Jane Pikett Sub Editor e: jane@thecreationgroup.co.uk DESIGN & PRODUCTION Euan Underwood, Kevin Waddell e: studio@room501.co.uk PHOTOGRAPHY KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk ADVERTISING For advertising contact Mark Anderson 0191 419 3221, mark@room501.co.uk

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room501 was formed from a partnership of directors who, combined, have many years of experience in contract publishing, print, marketing, sales and advertising and distribution. We are a passionate, dedicated company that strives to help you to meet your overall business needs and requirements. All contents copyright © 2009 room501 Ltd. All rights reserved. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All information is correct at time of going to print, October 2009.

YORKSHIRE EDITION

BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd.

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

CONTE BUSINESS QUARTER: AUTUMN 09 DRAMATIC BUSINESS

Features 16 DRAMA QUEEN Susannah Daley’s theatrical approach to good business

30 ATTIK ART The Leeds design business that’s creating brands worldwide

36 WE CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW How Yorkshire-based Ultralase is building business fixing eyes

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

65 GRAND DESIGNS?

GRAND DESIGNS?

The parties at the centre of Bradford’s bitter development row have their say

69 REACH FOR THE SKY The former bodybuilder making his name in the roofing business

74 IN THE MIX The mixed use development making its mark at Glasshoughton

TENTS YORKSHIRE EDITION

28 AS I SEE IT

Todd Hannula’s recipe for integrity

ON THE CARDS

40 BUSINESS LUNCH Card Factory’s Dean Hoyle’s clear message for business success

46 WINE

Regulars

Ann Morrison broadens her horizons with two tipples from Languedoc

48 FASHION How to dress down with style

ON THE RECORD Who’s making the news in Yorkshire

NEWS Who’s doing what, when, where and why, here in the region

20 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY The landmark developments building the region’s industrial landscape

56 KIT Time flies with Bremont watches

40 SMART CASUAL

62 MOTORING Jonathan Jones goes green with the new Lexus hybrid, RX450h

80 FRANK TOCK Gripping gossip from our backroom boy

82 EVENTS The best events this coming quarter

48 BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

ON THE RECORD

AUTUMN 09

While one Yorkshire entrepreneur launches an online reputation management system, Bradford Council is facing further controversy over its city centre plans; it’s all on the record and more this quarter potential of both the airport and our region from Europe’s largest airline.”

>> ICM man in new site venture The man who was on the losing end of the only hostile takeover in Yorkshire in the past five years has chosen the region to be the guinea pig in his new venture, a website which business leaders can use to protect their online reputation. Steve Wainwright, who was chief executive of Batley-based ICM when it was eventually taken over by Phoenix IT in 2007 against the board’s recommendation, has even managed to persuade former Government spin doctor Alastair Campbell to support the project. Wainwright’s site - www.profiled.com - has been developed to counter what can often be inaccurate personal information found on internet search engines. Initially being trialled in Yorkshire, the site lets business people who become members put together a personal page to store and update accurate information about themselves. They will be subject to an identity verification process to help prevent identity fraud. The site also features a ‘contextual search engine’ which searches the web for articles about members and notifies them of the results, allowing them to monitor, and where necessary and if possible, refine what’s said about them. “I see profiled.com as essentially making order out of chaos,” said Wainwright.”We all use the internet to find information on new business contacts, but a lot of the information we get back via the popular search engines is either about someone else entirely or is wholly inaccurate. “I wanted a place where I could take positive control of the information about me on the internet and our market research showed that other senior business people felt the same. “This is only the start. We have a pipeline of additional features being introduced over the coming months which will make the site a must-have business resource, including a version of profiled.com for corporates.” Speaking to an audience of 150 at the launch of the site, Alastair Campbell said: “We must all recognise the threats and opportunities that this new era of communication presents and appreciate the importance of taking positive control of New site: Steve Wainwright our online presence.”

>> Jet2 heads south Low-cost airline Jet2 has opened a new base at East Midlands Airport just as rival Ryanair considerably ups its presence at Jet2’s home base - Leeds Bradford Airport. Jet2 will offer seven routes from East Midlands, its seventh hub in the UK, starting next May, and says it will be creating 250 jobs as a result. The destinations include Lanzarote, Dalaman, Corfu, Crete, Cyprus, Tenerife and Sharm El Sheikh.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

The announcement comes just three weeks after Ryanair announced it would be making Leeds Bradford its 34th hub with a $140m investment that would see two aircraft stationed there permanently from March next year. The Irish airline also plans to increase the number of destinations it serves from Leeds Bradford from three to 17. Announcing the new investment, Leeds Bradford’s chief executive John Parkin said: “This is a great vote of confidence in the

>> York scheme shelved Three organisations backing a scheme to regenerate a large site in York city centre admit that they have now given up trying to find a developer to take the scheme forward. Network Rail, Yorkshire Forward and the National Museum of Science & Industry (NMSI) say current conditions have made it impossible to find a commercially viable deal for the York Central site. The 35ha site, two-thirds the size of the historic walled city of York, backs onto York railway station and the National Railway Museum, owned by NMSI. Ian Lindsay, head of major developments at Network Rail, said: “We received two very accomplished bids for this development, but as everyone knows, the property market is very challenging at present. York Central was always going to be a complex development, even when the market was strong. Disappointingly, in the current property market, it has proved impossible.” However Andrew Scott, acting director of NMSI, said his organisation would still be advancing its £20m plan to improve the visitor offer at the museum. This is currently cut off from the rest of the city centre by railway lands.

>> ‘The worst is over’ ... or is it? Businesses in Yorkshire have experienced a sharp downturn in the past 12 months but believe next year will bring improvements, Yorkshire Forward’s latest National Business Survey suggests. A survey of those advising them, however, paints a gloomier picture compared with the nation as a whole.

AUTUMN 09

Yorkshire Forward’s survey suggests that 55 per cent of businesses in the region claimed their business performance had deteriorated over the past year. But the number of companies expecting the situation to improve in the next 12 months had risen from 8 per cent in the autumn of 2008 to 20 per cent in the spring of 2009. Businesses in the finance and business services and public and personal services sectors were

ON THE RECORD

the most optimistic of those surveyed. Some 51 per cent of businesses said they intended to spend the next 12 months as the economy improves looking at diversifying and pursuing new markets, with more money due to be spent in sales. The survey also revealed that those companies which had been advised by Business Link were considerably more optimistic than those who had not taken advice from the organisation.

But Yorkshire scored less well on the Business Confidence Index for Quarter 3 released by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in September. The survey of business professionals in the region produced a confidence score of -0.1. Although this was a rise of 34 points on the previous quarter – a record increase – it was still well below the national average score of +4.8.

>> Bradford presses on Scheme: New Victoria Place

Bradford City Council has given outline approval to a controversial scheme to replace the city’s derelict Odeon cinema with a mixed use development, just weeks after it announced it was pressing ahead with the equally controversial City Park scheme using £10m of public money. The proposed New Victoria Place scheme, designed by Leeds-based architects Carey Jones, would include Grade A offices, a 98-bed hotel, bars, cafes and community leisure facilities with landscaping designed to provide a link with the proposed City Park. The scheme’s developer, Langtree Artisan, claims that it will deliver more than 1,350 jobs

to Bradford. Langtree Artisan director Simon Peters said: “This is a landmark decision and the right decision to provide the catalyst for the regeneration of Bradford. We’re confident that we can deliver a scheme that local people will ultimately be proud of.” The project has, however, run into considerable opposition, with one group, the Bradford Odeon Rescue Group (BORG), claiming that a surveyor’s report shows that the building as it stands is still commercially viable. As BQ went to press, BORG was claiming that the fight to save the building was not over, that the council had been “backed into a corner” and that they were considering their options.

Others, including the Labour opposition on Bradford council, concede that it might at least be possible to retain the towers on the old cinema, even if the rest of the site is developed. The decision comes only weeks after the council announced that work on the City Park, including the much talked about Mirror Pool, could start this autumn after the council and other public bodies reached agreement on how to fund the £25m project. The council itself will be stumping up £10m for the scheme, with Yorkshire Forward providing £9.3m and the rest coming from the Homes and Communities Agency and, because the project includes redeveloping the bus station, the Regional Transport Board. The plan to bring water back into the centre of Bradford has already failed to win Lottery funding, and a subsequent attempt by Michael Ziff, chairman of Bradford Centre Regeneration (BCR), the urban regeneration company, to fund the project from the private sector failed to get off the ground. But Maud Marshall, chief executive of BCR, which is being folded back into the council next year, insisted that that Big Lottery Fund’s decision not to fund the project would in hindsight be viewed as a “mistake”. Councillor Adrian Naylor, Bradford City Council’s executive member for regeneration and the economy, said it was important to start work now because some of the funds that were being accessed for the scheme might not be available next year. He also said pressing ahead with such a project would show that Bradford could deliver even in the depths of a recession. More about Bradford on p65

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NEWS

AUTUMN 09

Endless’s bail-out of Vasanta and JCT600 buying two Audi garages proves there still is some life in the Yorkshire deals market. But some well known names are struggling >> Minorplanet gets funds injection Vehicle tracking software company Minorplanet has raised nearly £2m in new loans and a share placing to stave off problems it was having with working capital. But an open offer it had conducted as part of its refinancing, and through which it was hoping it could raise as much as £2.1m, was considerably undersubscribed, with only around a seventh of the shares on offer being taken up. The Leeds-based company managed to raise £1.45m through the refinancing in total. It has also negotiated an extra £400,000 in additional funding from Siemens Financial and ING Lease.

>> White Young Green given leeway Struggling environmental consultancy White Young Green has been given an extension until the end of October to see if it can meet its financial covenants. The Leeds company says negotations with its financial backers are proceeding well, with heads of terms “at an advanced stage”, although nothing final has been agreed yet. It also warned that the possibilities presented by the restructuring it is currently considering could include such a large dilution of existing stock that it would no longer be eligible for listing on the main market.

>> Endless backs Vasanta Leeds-based turnaround fund Endless has joined with a syndicate of banks to refinance Sheffield-based office supplies group Vasanta to the tune of £30m. Vasanta, which has a turnover of £500m and employs 1,500 people around the UK, had been experiencing difficulties in the first half of 2009 because of its high level of debt, market

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

Motoring: John Tordoff, JCT600 chief executive (front) with (l to r) Nigel Shaw, group finance director and Andy Coulthurst, group sales director

>> JCT600 gets into Audi Car dealership chain JCT600 has become an Audi dealer for the first time by acquiring two full-service dealerships in Hull and York from the Gilder Group for £11m. The acquisition brings JCT600’s tally of dealerships across Yorkshire and the North East to 44, while it now employs 1,300 people across the region. The two new dealerships have a combined turnover of more than £30m and employ more than 80 staff, all of whom will be transferring to JCT600. Chief executive John Tordoff said: “We have wanted to work with Audi for some time as the brand has a great fit with our offering. In Hull Audi and York Audi we have been able to acquire two great dealerships with excellent reputations and quality staff in cities we already know very well.” The JCT600 chain, which already deals in 20 brands including Porsche, Volkswagen, Aston Martin, Bentley, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Ferarri and Maserati, increased sales of used cars by 30 per cent in the first seven months of this year compared with last. And new car sales only dropped by 10 per cent – 15 per cent better than the UK national average. Last year the company managed to post profits of £1m despite the downturn.

conditions, and the withdrawal of a significant level of credit insurance. Endless made the decision to invest and completed the transaction just three weeks after initially being approached by Deloitte, which has been advising Vasanta. The deal secures the ongoing future of the company’s Vow, Supplies Team and ISA Retail brands.

Mathew Deering of Endless said: “This is an important transaction as it preserves a substantial established business in the region. Vasanta’s customers and suppliers have an important role to play in the turnaround and we will work with them to ensure the group is well placed for an improvement in conditions. Endless was advised by Debbie Jackson, corporate partner at Walker Morris.

AUTUMN 09

>> Heywood Williams heads off Building product supplier Heywood Williams has delisted from the stock exchange after reaching a debt for equity swap with a banking syndicate that will control 80 per cent of the Halifax company when the deal is completed. The group says the deal will give it sufficient long-term capital to trade through current difficult conditions. The deal, which still has to be ratified by shareholders, involves a straight debt for equity swap of £21m of existing bank debt, with a further £6m in loans being made available. After the deal the management board will control 10 per cent of the company, with existing shareholders controlling the remaining 10.

>> Glisten puts off reporting Health food and confectionery manufacturer Glisten has put off announcing its results, with no new date set as this edition of BQ went to press, as it continues with an internal review into its accounting procedures. This follows a warning, reported on in the last issue, that its full year results will be below expectations because figures at one of its divisions had been overstated. The company also still has to meet with its bankers to discuss facilities in the light of the revelations.

>> Eurotel goes North West Halifax-based telecommunications business Eurotel has been bought by North West-based Daisy Communications

NEWS

for £13.5m a day after it went into administration. The sum is a considerable drop on the £44m Inflexion Private Equity paid for the business in March 2007. Eurotel had gone into administration despite posting turnover of £30.2m and earnings of £3.5m in the year to the end of March this year. The acquisition was the first for Daisy following its flotation on AIM.

>> Premier Farnell buys German firm Premier Farnell has added to its stable of products by buying German CAD software producer Cadsoft Computer for a possible 12 million euros. The deal sees the Leeds firm pay an initial 7 million euros for the company, with the >>

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BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

NEWS

AUTUMN 09

balance of the payment depending on the company meeting set criteria. Cadsoft has been running for 20 years supplying its Eagle brand of CAD software to over 40,000 design engineers, both in Germany and the USA. Premier Farnell chief executive Harriet Green said: “The Eagle software will enable us to facilitate design exchange between engineers through element14, our design community.”

>> Akbars gets help from Gordons Yorkshire-based Indian restaurant chain Akbars opened its first restaurant in Birmingham in September. The chain already has outlets right across the north of England and was named business of the year for the second year

>> Lake to head LFSI

Promoting Leeds: Deborah Green, chief executive Marketing Leeds, with chairman Nigel McLea (foreground), Dirk Mischendahl (background) and Nigel Foster

>> Marketing Leeds gets big ideas Marketing Leeds, the agency set up to promote the city nationally and internationally, has appointed three new members to its board as it prepares to host the latest in a series of thought-provoking business forums. Dirk Mischendahl, managing director of Leeds-based events management and marketing company Logistik and the founder of the Northern Art Prize, has joined the board. He is joined by Gary Lumby, head of retail and small business banking at Yorkshire Bank, and Nigel Foster, a director at Ove Arup & Partners. Mischendahl said he had “admired the way Marketing Leeds has been bold about making a noise about what Leeds has to offer”. Lumby, who is also the current president of the Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “Leeds has a great deal to offer and we must ensure we use this to capture our fair share of inward investment from both the public and private sectors. Marketing Leeds has a major role in this.” On October 21, the agency will be running The Business of Retail; a Question Time-style forum that aims both to explore the issues currently facing the retail industry and to promote Leeds as a retail destination. Key speakers include Mary Portas, currently a TV retail guru and previously a key mover in getting Harvey Nichols to open in Leeds; Gerarld Jennings, Land Securities’ retail director for the north who is currently heavily involved in the Trinity Quarter development; and Tim Whitworth, chief executive of the Republic jeanswear chain, based in Leeds. The forum is the latest in a series the agency is planning looking at different sectors that have a major bearing on Leeds’ success.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

running at the Asian Business Development Network awards earlier this year. But this new venture, a 300-seat restaurant on Hagley Road in Edgbaston, is the chain’s first venture in the West Midlands. Akbar’s was advised on the leasing and licensing arrangements for the new restaurant by Leeds and Bradford-based legal practice Gordon. The practice is also advising Akbars on its next restaurant opening – another 300-seater due to open in Newcastle in January 2010.

Leeds Financial Services Initiative (LFSI), the Yorkshire-Forward funded body that aims to boost Leeds’ profile in financial services, is rebranding itself Financial Leeds as it welcomes Joanne Lake as its new chairman. Lake, who has taken over from Kevin O’Connor of Baker Tilly, has been a member of LFSI since 2003. She was recruited by Williams de Broe to head its corporate finance team in Leeds in 1999, and stayed on as head of the northern team when Williams de Broe was acquired by Evolution Securities in 2006. She said: “The region has a strong financial and professional services community providing specialist advice to a broad range of clients. As we begin to emerge from the recession, this strength of advice will enable the Leeds city region to maintain its competitive edge and continue to develop its position as the leading financial centre outside London.”

>> Former Lucre director branches out Adrian Johnson, formerly a director at Leeds and London-based PR agency Lucre, has set up a new agency on his own based in the Calls in Leeds. Umpf aims to work across social media and digital as well as traditional channels. Johnson said his new agency’s aim was to “take PR beyond what agencies typically provide and help our clients to engage and interact with bigger audiences by applying clever, creative, strategic and measured campaigns to new channels”.

AUTUMN 09

Move: Vert managing director Jo Haigh and head of design Chris Tomlinson

>> Vert gets bigger at home Environmentally friendly display and point of sale supplier Vert has won a clutch of new contracts as it moves into a new 2,000 sq ft warehouse next to its headquarters in Bramley. The new warehouse replaces an existing warehouse in Wakefield, and director Justin Jackson says the move will reduce the company’s carbon dioxide emissions and travel costs. “The development also enables our designers to work in the same premises where their creativity takes shape,” he said, “helping us to offer an improved service to the customer and greater satisfaction for our staff.” Among new contract wins was one from Radio Systems Corporation, the trading name of PetSafe and Staywell, two pet safety brands. Vert produced 200 point of sale displays for both brands, which will go into pet stores nationwide. Vert’s products are usually made from 60 per cent recycled material and are themselves 90 per cent recyclable, but the Staywell products went further, with less than five per cent coming from virgin materials. The contract has also led to more work with sister company Innotek Australia.

>> Three launch e-commerce agency The managing director of Yorkshirebased direct marketing agency Prego has teamed up with two other experts in digital marketing to launch a new e-commerce agency.

Otley-based Digital Welly is run by Prego’s Steven Henry, with Andrew Banks and Rob Yorke. Together they have more than 35 years’ experience in e-commerce with blue chip brands including HBOS, Next, First Direct and Bupa. The new agency, which aims to help increase traffic to customers’ website and generate greater sales, is already working with Circus Casino, Jammy Dodgers and Strachan furniture. Henry said: “We have had a strong start. There was a niche in the market for a commercially-focused digital specialist agency and our team has expertise in driving web-based sales across many sectors.”

NEWS

doesn’t always happen, particularly in these tough times. Yet so many small businesses often write off bad debts as they don’t have the time or the inclination to follow them up. That in itself is bad for business, and our way of working lets people know that you can collect debts, and you can do it in a way that still maintains relationships.”

>> Adessi moves out Marketing agency Adessi has moved its head office out of Leeds city centre to premises that are twice the size of its old ones in Farsley. The agency, which also has offices in Newcastle and on Teesside, has also taken the opportunity to invest £20,000 in a customised document handling and knowledge management system. Adessi’s clients include Irwin Mitchell, Yorkshire’s biggest law firm, and packaging company Clondalkin. It also outsources teams that are currently working in-house for clients right across the North of England.

>> Agency to “update” debt collection’s image A former accountant with over 40 years’ experience has established a new debt collection agency in Harrogate which he hopes will banish outdated views of debt collectors by working collaboratively with both creditors and debtors. ADR hopes to help businesses across Yorkshire maintain their cashflow by working proactively with all parties. Founder Roger Evans said: “In an ideal world businesses would be working together to help each other by paying promptly and in full, but of course that

>> York bricks for Highbury The regeneration of the world-famous Highbury Stadium in London has been made possible partly through the contribution of a Yorkshire-based brick manufacturer. The York Handmade Brick Company, based in Easingwold, supplied all the bricks in a project to restore the stadium’s famous art deco East Stand. Arsenal Football Club moved out of the stadium in 2006, and it is currently being redeveloped into apartments and studios. Working with brick supply company Marshmoor, who also provided blue bricks for the project, York Handmade supplied nearly 20,000 Clifton Bend bricks for the contract, which was worth £24,000. Managing director David Armitage said: “Very strict guidelines were drawn up to ensure that the development was of the highest quality. It was a crucial condition of the planning process that the exterior of the old Grade II-listed East Stand, which houses Arsenal’s famous marble halls, should be preserved as it was. “I am especially proud that a Yorkshire manufacturing company was chosen to be part of a prestigious London project. That underlines that we have a recognised presence on the national as well as the regional stage.” >>

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

NEWS

AUTUMN 09

>> Leeds views the Thames Leeds-based digital marketing agency Fuse8 has beaten off competition from London and the USA to win a two-year contract to handle lead generation for a key play in the redevelopment of the Thames Gateway. Invest Thames Gateway (ITG) provides services for inward investors into Europe’s largest regeneration programme, which stretches from Southend in Essex to Sheerness in Kent. As part of the contract, Fuse8 will now be managing a range of events for ITG, including its presence this year at property conferences in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Bahrain, with exhibitions in Munich and Birmingham next year also currently in the planning stage. Work will include designing and building exhibition stands and hosting seminars. To win the business, Fuse8 had to review ITG’s current exhibition programme and had to propose integrated tactical activity in the key sectors of financial services, port and logistics and environmental technology in the USA, Indochina and Europe. Fuse8’s managing director Nigel Hunter said: “This latest appointment shows that our ability to link powerful strategic thought with outstanding tactical delivery clearly differentiates us within the events market today.”

>> Innovation for real Businesses in Yorkshire who want to find out just how innovative they really are can now find out for themselves by completing a five-minute online test compiled by the RTC North consultancy. The Innovation Navigator has also been produced with business support organisations in mind, so they can see just how effective and how well implemented their policies and services are. Anyone taking part has to answer a series of multiple choice questions to get an individual snapshot of their organisation’s culture. They can then benchmark this against other

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

organisations according to size, location and business sector, and can identify any changes by repeating the test over time. The survey covers issues such as qualifications, training, organisational structure, internal processes, collaboration, research, commercial strength and strategy. It is designed to help organisations pinpoint weaknesses that can then be addressed with targeted support. The Innovation Navigator is available at www.innovationnavigator.co.uk or as an offline web version. To find out more email ollie.finkill@rtcnorth.co.uk

>> Wholesaler finds time for tea A Richmond-based food wholesaler has set up a sister tea distribution company after spending a decade researching the perfect blend. Michael Harrison, managing director of Northern Select Foods, wants to target his new Mad Hatter Tea Company at the deli, farm shop, retail, wholesale and catering sectors. The company’s tea blend – 80 per cent of which is sourced from India, with the rest from Kenya – is the result of a six figure investment, much discussion with the Indian Tea Board, and several visits to tea plantations around the world to source product. Harrison, whose parents insisted he drink tea as a child, hopes the brand will appeal to adults and children alike, and hopes it will encourage children to drink tea instead of fizzy drinks. He chose the Mad Hatter name because Richmond is where Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter’s

creator, went to school. The tea is currently available in three different sized retail packs and is complemented by a product and gift pack range, including a Mad Hatter top hat-shaped ginger biscuit. The company also offers catering and deli size packs.

>> Anniversary boost for Appeal Harrogate-based PR agency Appeal celebrated its 10th anniversary during the summer by winning five new contracts in July and August which are worth in excess of £100,000 to the agency. The new wins included being retained by car dealership JCT600 for its corporate media work and to negotiate its management and sponsorship of Team JCT600; two Atlantic rowers who will undertake a 3,000 mile row across the Atlantic Ocean this year. The agency has also been investing in online and social media expertise, and is now establishing and running blogs and viral campaigns for a range of clients. “Blogger relations and online profile have become increasingly important over the past few years,” said founder Paul Snape, “and our lead on some of the more common-sense ways to use the internet to boost profile is now paying dividends.” The agency expects turnover, which currently stands at £360,000, to grow by 20 per cent this year, despite the downturn.

>> Marketing awards The Northern Marketing Awards return this year on Thursday November 26 with a ceremony at the Gosforth Marriott Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne. The awards celebrate the achievements of the North of England’s creative industries and entries are expected from some of the best agencies in the region. The Northern Marketing Awards recognise skills and creativity from all companies, not just creative agencies but in-house talent, marketing teams and individuals. There are ten categories offering excellent

AUTUMN 09

opportunities for a wide range of companies and individuals to enter plus the Grand Prix award, which recognises the most outstanding entry of 2009. Nominations are invited now online at www.marketingawards.org.uk

>> RDA in first £1m rural funding Yorkshire Forward has approved its first £1m funding allocation under the Government’s Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) scheme. The money will help York-based potato marketing company Cockerills double its packhouse operation within five years. It is intended that 85 per cent of all potoatoes the company sources for its expanded operation will come from the local area. The company, which already supplies potatoes

from the region to two discount retailers, is also investing £2m of its own money to expand and automate its packing operation at Dunnnington near York, and to install a dedicated kitchen to assess cooking quality. In total the new investment should boost Cockerill’s turnover by 80 per cent and create another 33 jobs. Managing director Martin Cockerill said: “We can now move forward, developing the company through improving efficiency and doubling the capacity of our packhouse operation. Without the RDPE funding we wouldn’t have been able to fulfil our growth ambition and we would have had to scale down our plans.” The RDPE programme, run by Yorkshire Forward and jointly funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the European Union, aims to invest £63m over six years in the rural economy across the

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UK. Cockerills accessed the grant through the Rural Enterprise Investment Programme.

>> RBS man joins the Alternative Board The former head of business banking at the RBS Group has joined the UK advisory board of The Alternative Board, the nationwide mentoring organisation which is being led out of Yorkshire. Before leaving RBS in 2007 to join Close Bros as a consultant, Jason Oakley was also chief executive of Hanco, an RBS subsidiary which was the UK’s largest deployer of independent cash machines. TAB UK chairman Martin Allison, who also used to work at RBS, said: “Having worked with Jason at RBS, I am delighted that he is able to join our advisory board, where >>

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BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

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his experience will be invaluable.” Earlier this year Peter Leach, a former BDO Stoy Hayward consultant who now conducts research at the London Business School and sits on the advisory board of the UK Institute for Family Business, also joined TAB’s UK advisory board.

>> Gordons get more in wills Law firm Gordons has expanded its contentious wills, trusts and probate department with the appointment of Amy Croxford as a solicitor. Croxford joins the company from Sheffieldbased Bell & Buxton. Gordons is one of only a handful of legal practices in the north of England which has a dedicated contentious wills department dealing with private individuals.

>> Two new wins for JCA Ilkley-based PR and marketing consultancy Jeni Cropper and Associates has won two new accounts - with insurance and financial services group J M Glendinning and with printers Digital Plus. One of the agency’s first roles with J M Glendinning was to promote its sponsorship of the Ilkley Open Tennis Tournament, and a seminar the company is running in october with investment expert Justin Urquhart Stewart. JCA will also be promoting Digital Plus in its tenth anniversary year, just as it takes on a new printer which can format extremely large high quality displays onto almost any surface.

>> Science City York gets mentor funding Science City York (SCY) has succeeded in winning an extra £1.3m from the European Regional Development Fund to launch an ambitious three-year mentoring project for the innovative companies it supports. The money, obtained through Yorkshire Forward, is in addition to the £1m SCY already gets from the regional development agency

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>> Leeds welcomes Milanese delegates Nine conference buyers from Milan have just returned from a fact-finding visit to Leeds that is a direct result of last year’s Leeds in Milan Festival of Commerce and Culture. The nine buyers, all of whom expressed an interest in visiting the city during last year’s event organised by Marketing Leeds, were invited to tour a showcase of potential venues that Leeds has to offer in a tour organised by the Leeds Hotel Association, Marketing Leeds, Conference Leeds, and Consul General Lawrence Bristow-Smith. Marketing Leeds chief executive Deborah Green said: “I’m certain the visit will be the start of long-standing relationships with the buyers, and an opportunity to bring international events to Leeds in the future.”

and the £600,000 it receives from York City Council. It will go towards providing embedded specialist support and enhanced online support to improve around 130 small businesses’ market intelligence. Three high-level business mentors will be appointed to support key individuals within these companies to help them overcome critical barriers to growth. The project aims to create 160 new jobs over the period, and boost local GVA by £5.6m. Andy Gurnell, Science City York’s delivery services manager, said: “The service will target established businesses with growth and innovation potential that have reached a point in their development where further growth is limited by resource and capacity issues such as marketing, recruitment and process innovation. The mentors will aim to enable a

higher return on investment and improved market position for the companies involved. Science City York is also able to foster links between researchers, institutions and industry to increase knowledge exchange and the commercialisation of research.”

>> Council reaches deal with Blue Sky Middlesbrough Council has signed a deal with Wakefield-based Blue Sky Resorts to rent out a specially adapted caravan on a caravan park the company recently acquired to provide holiday accommodation for carers. The council will be renting out the caravan at Spring Willows Leisure Park at Staxton near Scarborough for a total of 75 weeks

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over the next five years. Blue Sky acquired the park earlier this year and adapted the caravan to make it suitable for people with disabilities.

>> 10 gets natural Huddersfield design agency 10 has designed the branding and packaging for Pontefract-based Cott Beverages’ new range of healthy soft drinks. Cott, a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest non-alcoholic drinks producers, has designed its Bare All range of additive-free drinks in a bid to cash in on the new market for healthier drinking and eating. 10 says its design for the packaging aims to reflect the natural ingredients and the drinks’ healthier image. Creative director Jill Peel said: “We have developed the pack personality with hand

drawn fruit doodles. These show a hand picking the fruit, which instantly conveys its natural freshness.

>> Leeds Media man looks overseas Former Leeds media director Terry Morden says his new venture as a business coach has seen 20 per cent growth this quarter, thanks in part to newly established work overseas. Morden has recently returned from delivering a three-day communications workshop in Stockholm to international media trainees on behalf of training provider Hyper Island. His audience included trainees from Norway, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and the USA, as well as Sweden.

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>> Another £5m for biomass in the region A further £5m grant has been made available to improve the supply chain for biomass energy in Yorkshire. Future Energy Yorkshire has already invested £5m in building England’s largest wood pellet mill at Pollington near Goole. Now through its Woodfuel Infrastructure Progamme, the agency, which is funded by Yorkshire Forward, aims to give grants to businesses to help establish a proper biomass infrastructure and supply chain in the region. The money is designed to help develop technologies for all kinds of woodfuel use, and support the development of markets for biomass. Some money will also be made available for domestic and commercial biomass boilers. To find out more about the grants available, see www.fey.org.uk

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DRAMA QUEEN If you think business and theatre don’t mix, you might spend some time with Susannah Daley, says Peter Baber, who has done just that

Whoever heard of a theatre company that consistently made a profit? Why, the drama industry is littered with tales of productions that ran millions into the red before anyone bothered to check the accounts. And if you speak to your average thespian too harshly about the need to be commercially aware, chances are you’ll get a sneering look as they mutter something about great art being sacrificed for Mammon. But actually theatre companies that make a profit are not as uncommon as some might presume. PEEL (Partnership Entertainment Events Ltd) has been making profit every year since it started in the late 1990s presenting theatrical events in Yorkshire’s museums. It’s grown too, to the point where it is now organising educational and inspiring theatre events for cruise lines including Fred Olsen and Thomson, which is interesting for a company based in the landlocked towns of Skipton and Keighley. “You could be walking along the high street in Keighley between Marks & Spencer and the Co-op and have no idea that above you are 60 or 70 singers, dancers and actors learning their lines,” says founder and managing director Susannah Daley. She thinks not being based by the sea is actually an advantage when it comes to deciding how people might like to be entertained

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on board. “You certainly don’t get many cruise ships on the Leeds to Liverpool Canal,” she says. “But maybe if you were in Southampton you would be too focused on the mechanics of the ship.” Sitting in the café in the Dan Pearson-designed garden at Broughton Hall where PEEL has its head office, and where it recently put on a promenade production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Daley says the need to make a decent return – something she also managed to do the first time she took a show as a student theatre producer to the Edinburgh Festival – was part of the business

What we do is truthful. If we do Moulin Rouge, we do it properly and go back to the Degas paintings

ethic first drilled into her at the age of nine when she joined a youth theatre group in her native Keighley. “I was very well disciplined in teamwork and being on time,” she says. “And on seeing a project through and committing to it. It’s not just your theatre group, it’s a way of life. It had a real effect on me.” They may sound like the words of a travelling minstrel were it not for the fact that we are talking about a £4.5m turnover company; one that employs more than 200 people throughout the year, and takes what it produces very seriously indeed. Each show is meticulously researched, and nothing is left to the improvisational skills of the actors. Everything is scripted and tested back home in Skipton. “What we do is above all truthful,” Susannah says. “If we do Moulin Rouge, we do it properly and go back to the Degas paintings.” There’s clearly careful consideration of the audience too: one recent show about Africa and European settlers’ reaction to it – the kind of thought-provoking piece Daley is pleased Thomson allows them to do – included the song Zambesi. This song, that any child could easily pick up, was a hit for the Piranhas back in >>

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ENTREPRENEUR

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ENTREPRENEUR 1982, so it could be recognised by all those parents on board who might want to forget their New Romantic days. And before that it was a hit for both Lou Busch and Eddie Calvert in the 1950s, so grandparents wouldn’t feel left out either. It’s not surprising, then, that the company has impressed its clients over the years. First Choice, which was the first cruise company to take them on, put all its cruise operations into a joint venture with Royal Caribbean called Island Cruises two years later, and they initially decided to opt for another provider for entertainment, partly because that company could offer other services PEEL couldn’t at the time. But they were asking for PEEL to come back less than a year later when the new provider failed to come up to scratch. “In the meantime, we had got a much better offer from Thomson Cruises,” says Daley. “Though the irony is that Thomson and Island have now merged.” The entertainment PEEL currently provides for Thomson regularly comes top in polls of on-board entertainment carried out by trade magazine Travel Trade Gazette. Daley first got into what she calls ‘museum theatre’ when she chased up an advert for actors to do special shows at what was then the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT) while she was at drama college. It was something she followed up very much on her own initiative, she says, as the tutors at the college seemed more interested in their lunchtime pints. The then head of the museum, Colin Ford, only agreed to see her after she badgered him persistently. But at the interview they discovered they shared a passion for the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Ford is a world expert on her, and Daley had studied her for her photography A-level, though she admits that she “never bothered to see who had written the books”. But the shared interest led to a strong friendship and Ford is now chairman of PEEL. “We started a company called Action Replay Theatre in my last year at college,” says Daley, “and as soon as I finished college I went there full time. I was there for about eight years. It was brilliant. I remember a show we did about Perestroika because an exhibition came called Mother Russia. We had all these amazing photographs. We did a big one on death too.”

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Headline act: Susannah Daley heads a highly profitable creative business

They said, ‘surely you can do that?’ and we couldn’t then, but I thought, ‘well, we’ll find out if we can’

Daley, who had won a BBC young playwright competition for a comedy about children dying and going to Heaven admits with a chuckle that that makes her sound rather morbid. “But the show was about how death is treated in different cultures and being in Bradford that was really important.” Towards the end of her time at the museum she organised a weekend for similar groups which ran theatre productions in museums, and the requests she had from museums that did not have such a group persuaded her that the time had come to branch out and offer her services elsewhere. And so the Daley Partnership, later renamed PEEL, was born. Early clients included the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, and then Tetley’s Brewery in Leeds. There they provided educational performances in the morning, but in a new departure for the company, and because of the clientele, were asked to put on song and dance shows in the evening. “They said, ‘surely you can do that?’,” says Daley. “We couldn’t then. But I thought, ‘well, we’ll find out if we can’.” And they did, and once again impressed the client. Then, a director from Tetley’s went to work for a branding agency whose major client was First Choice. PEEL was duly recommended when First Choice was looking for an entertainment provider for its new venture in cruising. “He phoned to say we should put our name forward,” says Daley, “and I said I couldn’t think why he would think of us. I had never even been on a boat. But he said First Choice wanted something different because they were new to the market. There were 10 on the shortlist from all over the world, and reluctantly - very reluctantly - and only because of this guy, they put us as number 11.” Notwithstanding her misgivings about the contract on offer, she knew she might be onto a good thing. The NMPFT was in the process of being renamed and rebranded as the National Media Museum, and its new head had ideas about what it should include - and that didn’t necessarily include live theatre. A special Spotlight Gallery that had been specially created for the company was subsequently demolished during the museum’s expansion. “The National Lottery had given lots of grants to new museums too,” she says, “but at the time no one had any revenue to run them,

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so we weren’t getting much work there.” Daley realised that the cruise contract was a make or break opportunity. So when PEEL got down to a shortlist of four, contending against some industry leaders, she knew they would have to put everything into it. “That was a challenge,” she says, “because we had to put on a show and we hadn’t actually been on a ship by then. But at the time we were running an education programme with Blackpool Tower, and they had a sailor’s bar. We hired dancers from Pleasure Beach and we already had singers; though only because they happened to be actors who could sing. We put our heads together and spent just about every last penny we had at the bank at the time. We felt we had got to show we could do it. We had £18,000 left and threw it on the stage. I remember it seemed an awful lot of money then.” Above all, knowing that First Choice was looking for something completely different from the usual onboard cabaret shows, she wanted to demonstrate the company’s educational side. So they imagined they were doing a show on ship bound for Corsica, and came up with a scenario where you got to meet that island’s most famous son, Napoleon. “First Choice thought that was a really good idea,” she says, “so against all the odds, we got through.” PEEL now organises all the entertainment – not just theatre, but children’s activities and so on – on four of Thomson’s ships. It now also has a contract with Fred Olsen cruises – although to ensure that they are not duplicating what they offer Thomson they only provide a set number of shows for them. “If we did what we do with Thomson with anyone else it would be a bit like committing adultery,” says Daley. Earlier this year the company also won a contract to provide entertainment for Warner Hotels’ Thoresby Hall in Nottinghamshire. But although another contract win looks imminent, Daley says she is not necessarily looking to take the company further into the hotel sector. “The reason we took up the Warner contract was the unique nature of the hotels and the historic houses,” she says. “I couldn’t see that translating to anywhere that didn’t have a story to tell. You would then become an agency, and I’m not interested in being that at all. “But I am interested in how we might work on the web. Video has been a difficult part of the

ENTREPRENEUR

web, but now video streaming is becoming so easy, people want videos but they want people who can do the research, and that’s us.” Such projects mean there is little time for her to enjoy the writing she used to - though Colin Ford, now Dr Colin Ford after he took a doctorate in museum theatre – does some for them. Daley says she doesn’t mind because she is just as happy helping to create a great business. She gets irritated, in fact, by people who find a combination of theatricality and commerciality odd. “One of my big bugbears is that in this country we are separated into either creative or business,” she says. “There is this idea that if you want to be a good actor you have to go to the

Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). If I had any desire to go into there it would be to show people that you do not have to feel you’re only legitimate if someone is giving you a grant. “There is a terrible fear that the other kind of more commercial theatre is awful unless you are Cameron Mackintosh. But think what he must have had to go through, with plenty of failures. Most young actors need to earn a living. What we offer is a beautiful mix.” She does concede, however, that there is a need for subsidised theatre as a core of the industry – and admits that there are facets to that side of theatrical life she would find intimidating – not least getting people to come to the show in the first place. After all, what PEEL works with on ships is largely a captive audience. “At the moment our business is business-tobusiness,” she says, “whereas a West End show is very much business-to-consumer. I would be quite green about that.” Nevertheless, there are ways in which she says the work PEEL does benefits theatre as a whole in this country. “If you said to someone, ‘would you like to see a play about the history of Thoresby Hall?’, they would say no,” she says. “But if you showed them the history while they were there, they would say, ‘that’s fantastic, I didn’t know that’. We’re bringing people to theatre who may not realise that theatre is actually where they are being brought. “On ships particularly, the number of people who have said, ‘I’d never been to the theatre before, but I think I’m going to go now’, is phenomenal. We get that from hundreds of people.” And it is more than likely that were she to put her mind to it, she would probably be able to devise a perfectly respectable West End show, as she has had such ideas before. A show by her might even be phenomenal. Some 12 years ago, for example, she came up with an idea for a musical based around Abba songs. Sounds familiar? Daley laughs. “A friend actually said, ‘I can’t believe you did that before that lady who wrote Mamma Mia’. I said, ‘I can’t believe she thought to write to Benny and Bjorn, and I didn’t!’ That’s the kind of thing I would have done if the business hadn’t been taking up so much of my time.” But with a business that in the height of the season is entertaining over 8,000 people a week, there is still a lot to be contented about. n

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Optimism is rising among property developers, with many believing the downturn is now over, so says a survey we report on p22. Read on to see that optimism reflected in the commercial property sector >> Time to appeal on rates

>> Approval for Garforth scheme Leeds City Council has granted detailed planning consent for a 70-acre employment park at Garforth that could provide between 1,500 and 2,000 sustainable jobs when it is fully developed. Approval for phase one of CalEast Global Logistics’ Hawks Park development, on Junction 47 of the M1, means work could start later this year. The plans include a single 200,000 sq ft distribution or industrial building on a 12-acre site; 120,000 sq ft of modern high-quality B1 office accommodation in nine buildings varying from 8,000 to 25,000 sq ft over 10 acres; and associated infrastructure to enable the whole site to be ready for immediate development. CalEast Global bought the site with development partner Barwood Developments from Prudential in March 2008. The site had an outline planning consent for 840,000 sq ft of B1, B2 & B8 (office and industrial distribution and warehouse) uses. Phase Two has outline planning for 535,000 sq ft and design principles approved already could accommodate a single building of up to 750,000 sq ft on 45 acres. Site enabling works and infrastructure could start later this year, with construction of the first 200,000 sq ft warehouse/industrial building able to begin in June next year. Alan Rudge, chairman of Northampton-based Barwood Developments, said: “Hawks Park provides a tremendous opportunity for expanding, relocating and new businesses in Yorkshire and beyond. We are now able to respond rapidly, positively and flexibly to market demands and create quality freehold and leasehold bespoke solutions to suit the needs of occupiers”. Leeds City Council development director Jean Dent said: “This is a significant addition to the city’s location for business. The Leeds out-of-town market combines proximity to the city centre with direct access to the motorway network, making it an ideal base for companies serving regional and national markets.” Dove Haigh Philips in Leeds and Strutt & Parker in London are the retained agents. CalEast Global Logistics are advised by LaSalle Investment Management.

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Commercial property owners who are concerned about the new rateable value their property may have just been landed with should seriously consider appealing anyway because so much has happened in the property market since the date the values were calculated on, property advisers in the region are claiming. The Valuation and Rating Agency (VOA) published its draft rateable values – part of a regular five-yearly update – at the start of October, and will be sending out the new values to most ratepayers before the end of the month. The calculations take into account rent returns and market transactions. But Gillian Oliver, rating director at DTZ in Leeds, says that because the date used to calculate the values was April 1 2008, values are likely to be considerably less accurate than the agency claimed they were during the last revaluation. “That was the same day that legislation was introduced reducing empty rates relief,” she said, “with the knock-on effect of significantly reducing rents. In addition, we have all witnessed the recent turbulence in the commercial property market with huge swings in values both up and down in the period since the previous valuation date, which was April 1 2003.” Mark Radford, director of rating at Jones Lang LaSalle, agreed that property values have taken such a battering in the past few months that it would be worthwhile at least considering an appeal. The Department for Communities and Local Government says that because the change in rating valuations will be accompanied by a reduction in the overall uniform business rate, businesses are likely to see an average reduction of the rates they pay of £770 a year. But Oliver warns that this will be impossible to calculate until the UBR rate for 2010/11 is published. As for who is likely to be worst off after the

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changes, opinion there seems to be more divided. Oliver said: “Some stronger sectors, such as supermarkets, will actually see an increase in their rates liabilities. Also, rate bills for properties such as independent schools and colleges, which are not normally let in the open market and are therefore valued by reference to their replacement cost, may also increase more markedly due to upward movements in building costs.” In contrast, Radford said that while some London properties will be facing large increases in rateable values, some retailers in Yorkshire and particularly owners of industrial properties may be luckier. “They will benefit from modest increases or even reductions,” he said. But Claire Paraskeva, director at GVA Grimley in Leeds, warned that any reduction Northern businesses might see would be reduced by the Government being most likely to phase in the changes to soften the impact of big increases – so in fact the North will for a time be subsidising the South’s rates increase. “The double whammy of reduced rateable values coupled with a reduction in the UBR could have been a breath of fresh air for many troubled businesses in the North,” she said, “especially in the manufacturing sector, where the severe curtailment of empty rates relief has been the final nail in the coffin for some operators. But due to the implementation of the proposed phasing arrangements, it is unlikely that companies which need reduced rate liabilities the most will receive the real benefit for another four years at least.” She did welcome the proposed increase in rateable value thresholds for small businesses to obtain rates relief. This has been raised by £3,000 so that any property with a rateable value of less than £18,000 can now benefit.

>> York building has the edge The Edge, Shepherd Development’s new office building in York, has been recognised for its high standard of information and communications

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

technology. The 14,500 sq ft Grade A building in the Fulford area of the city has been accredited with ict active, a national award which rewards excellence in the provision of ICT. The building is currently available to buy or to rent, either as self-contained offices or as sub-divided offices from 4,000 sq ft upwards. Rent is £16.00 per sq ft with generous incentives available, or £175 per sq ft to buy. Richard Squire, project director of

Shepherd Developments, said: “This sends out a clear message that we can fulfil – and possibly exceed – the ICT needs of potential occupiers. “The fact that we built it speculatively is a massive vote of confidence in the York market. There is currently a shortage of Grade A office space in the city and we are confident that The Edge fulfils a need. The Leeds office of King Sturge is a joint agent on the building, along with Lawrence Hannah.

>> HIC in £13m expansion plan The Harrogate International Centre (HIC) is about to start work on a £13m expansion which it hopes will help it attract significantly more national and international events to the centre, as well as corporate dinners. The expansion, which the centre aims to start building in spring 2010 and complete by autumn 2011, will give the centre an extra 3,400 sq m in space by providing two new exhibition halls. The halls, which will be linked to the centre’s existing facilities, will each have a height of 6m to allow exhibitors to be as creative as possible with their displays. The centre’s main entrance will also be expanded and made more prominent. And the new facilities will also mean the HIC, which is already the second largest integrated conference and exhibition facility in the UK, can now handle a banquet for 1,800 people. HIC director Stuart Quin said: “This development will make a huge difference to our facilities and enable us to attract and host a wide range of national and international events. It’s not only important to us at HIC, but the town of Harrogate and the wider Yorkshire visitor economy will also benefit.” >>

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

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>> Employment office revamped The former site of the Leeds Employment Office has been turned into a 26,000 sq ft self-contained office space in an £1.5m transformation project by Wood Mitchell. Dysons Chambers in Lower Briggate was bought by DTZ Investment Management during 2005, but only became available for refurbishment following subsequent negotiations. DTZ also acted as design consultant, cost consultant and agent on the scheme, which began in December last year. Based over four floors with basement parking, the building is comfort cooled via an air source heat pump system. Other ‘green’ features include luminaires working to a presence or daylight detection system and ventilators which can run at variable speeds to save costs. The building can cater for requirements from 2,680 sq. ft upwards.

>> Wool men move into warehouse The British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) has bought a 114,000 sq ft building on Canal Road in Bradford for a multi-million pound sum. The former Empire Direct warehouse is planned to replace BWMB’s existing depot at City Road. The BWMB was advised on the deal by Gordons commercial property partner, Simon Leonard. Over the course of the next 12 months the building will be refurbished to accommodate a wool grading depot.

>> Toronto Square in line for award Highcross’s Toronto Square in Leeds City Centre has been shortlisted for a national environmental award. The scheme is one of only three finalists for the Office Development of the Year category in the Estates Gazette Green Awards - and the only refurbished building included on the awards shortlist. The other shortlisted buildings for the awards, which aim to recognise best practice in

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>> Investor sentiment goes up Optimism is on the increase among property investors in Yorkshire and the UK, the lastest survey from Jones Lang LaSalle reveals, with many believing the worst of the downturn is now over. Some 60 per cent of the nearly 200 principals and lenders who responded to the agency’s Quarter 3 Real Estate Investor Confidence Survey reported being “more confident” about the next 12 months. As a result, the net balance (the balance of those reported “more confident” minus those reported “less confident”) strengthened from +32 per cent in Quarter 2 2009 to +58 per cent in Quarter 3 2009. The percentage of “less confident” responses also reduced to 3 per cent. Mathew Atkinson, associate director in Jones Lang LaSalle’s national investment team in Leeds, said sentiment in the region matched the overall UK picture. “Investor sentiment has been particularly marked by robust interest shown for product at the prime end of the market,” he said. “We recently sold the ASDA regional distribution centre at Normanton, near Wakefield, for £18.65m, reflecting a net initial yield of 7.25 per cent.” The warehouse, which was sold to a private client of Hartnell Taylor Cook, fronts Junction 31 of the M62. It includes ground and first floor integral office accommodation, as well as separate loading and car parking facilities. It is currently let in its entirety to McLagan Investments and guaranteed by ASDA, with an unexpired lease term of 17.5 years. The total passing rent is £4.25 per sq ft. Atkinson said the investment attracted a wide range of interest from multiple buyers. But he warned that because of the economic situation interest was more cool on properties that might not be considered prime. The research also showed that anticipated total returns for 2010 have improved, with more than 56 per cent of respondents now expecting “slightly higher” returns next year, compared with 2009; while the share anticipating “lower” returns almost disappeared. Nearly 20 per cent of the respondents over this quarter anticipate total returns for next year to be “a lot higher” than 2009.

sustainable development, are due to be unveiled later in October and are in London and Manchester. Toronto Square was completed in August 2009 following a £10m redevelopment and extension programme. This has created 90,000 sq ft of Grade A office space. The first

occupier, Zolfo Cooper, moved into its new 7,050 sq ft top floor offices in early September. The development has already achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating. It incorporates a range of environmental initiatives, including air source heat pumps for heating and cooling,

168,750 SQ FT OF GRADE A OFFICE SPACE. 40,000 SQ FT FLOORPLATES. SUITES AVAILABLE NOW FROM 2,088 SQ FT. For more information: Roddy Morrison roddy.morrison@collierscre.co.uk

For more information: Paul Fairhurst pfairhurst@savills.com

Struan Gunn struan.gunn@collierscre.co.uk

Alex Duckett aduckett@savills.com Another development by:

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY areas of green roofs, a green recycling hub, environmental initiatives to save waste water and a landscaping scheme which enhances site ecology. Highcross commercial development director Chris Mills said: “We identified a gap in the Leeds city centre office market for a ‘greener’ commercial office product and believe that Toronto Square is an excellent example of what can be achieved in terms of enhancing environmental credentials, even late in the development process and at a commercially viable cost.”

Cooperating: l to r, Ian Lamoureux, Bingley store manager for Co-operative Group, Richard Holmes, director at 4Urban and Peter Ryan, regional director for Co-operative Group

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Bingley in many years, could finally give a new look to a site that has in the past seen several false dawns, with ambitious plans announced by previous owners only to come to nothing. The development will see the uninviting steps from the high street demolished to provide a more open pedestrian space with direct access to shops. This also leads to an escalator and lift that connects to the lower level on Chapel Lane where the car park and new library are located. Boots, NatWest, Greggs, Superdrug, Timpsons, Klick, and Betfred are already committed to the centre and 4Urban claims that three more occupiers could be announced, meaning that 5Rise could be 80 per cent let at the point of opening. 4Urban’s development director Richard Holmes said: “With the finishing touches being made, we expect the centre to be open in a matter of weeks. We are in advanced negotiations with a number of high street retailers and feel confident that 5Rise will become fully let soon.”

>> Bingley centre nears completion Bingley’s new 5Rise shopping centre could be open by the end of the year now its developer 4Urban has handed over the anchor unit to The Co-operative Group for final fit-out. The Co-operative is one of eight retailers that have made an advanced commitment to 4Urban’s development, which was formerly known as Myrtle Walk Shopping Centre. The retailer is to occupy nearly 12,000 sq ft to the rear of the development. Peter Ryan, regional manager for The Co-operative Group, said: “This handover marks a key stage in the development of Bingley’s new Co-operative food store and our long standing relationship with the town.” 4Urban is scheduled to complete 5Rise by the end of this month. The scheme, the most significant regeneration project in

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>> Leeds estate swaps hands The Maybrook Industrial Estate in Leeds has changed owners for £5.1m in a deal which reflects a net initial yield of 10.24 per cent. Phoenix Life has sold the estate, which currently generates an annual rent of over £550,000, to the UK Pension Fund. DTZ acted for Phoenix Life. Built in the early 1980s, Maybrook Industrial Park comprises 13 units totalling 110,321 sq ft. The estate is fully let to five tenants including Brake Bros, Clear Channel and Just Car Clinics. James Lawlor, senior investment surveyor at DTZ said: “The strong asset management

programme that had been implemented by DTZ and the owners during the lead up to the sale allowed us to maximise the price. This disposal demonstrates that investor demand does exist for good quality assets where they are priced correctly.” Christopher Dee advised the Lafarge UK Pension Fund.

>> First tenant at Wellington Euro Car Parts has become the first tenant at Bradford’s Wellington Business Park in a move that will create 25 jobs. The company has secured a 15-year lease on a 4,500 sq ft unit at the new business park on Sticker Lane from the owner, Bradford property developer Marrtree. Gordons advised on the deal. Marrtree director William Marshall, said: “Having only recently completed Wellington Business Park, we are delighted to welcome a nationally recognised brand as our first tenant within such a short space of time.” Located approximately two miles from the M606, Wellington Business Park comprises eight units within two terraces of self-contained portal framed business units. Each has a loading facility from a large shared secure yard which also provides ample on-site parking. The remaining seven units are available individually or in combination and range in size from 1,750 sq ft to 16,000 sq ft. Joint agents on the development are Walker Singleton and Eddisons.

>> Creatives move into Holbeck Welcome to Yorkshire and television production company True North have both taken up office space in the Holbeck area of Leeds in deals negotiated by Knight Frank. Welcome to Yorkshire has taken the renovated Dry Sand Foundry, a self-contained Grade II* listed office building facing Water Lane and forming part of the award-winning Round >>

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY Foundry Development. The organisation has relocated from York. Oliver Quarmby of CTP St James, which developed the Round Foundry, said: “The letting to Welcome to Yorkshire completes the second phase of the Round Foundry. In a difficult market with the boot firmly on the tenant’s foot, attracting this tenant is

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testament to the quality of the ambition, design and construction of the project.” True North, formerly based at the Yorkshire Television Studios in Kirkstall Road, has taken 4,963 sq ft on the third floor of Marshalls Mills in Marshall Street. Both of the developments are owned by Igloo Regeneration.

>> Honley estate goes local Crossley Mills Industrial Estate in Huddersfield has been sold by Valad Property Group to a private investor. The sale of the 40,000 sq ft estate in Honley represents a net initial yield of 10.92 per cent with a capital value of £31 per sq ft. The total rent is £147,000 per annum, averaging out at £4.45 per sq ft. Rebecca Farnsworth of Knight Frank, who advised Valad on the deal, said: “The estate provides an established community of local businesses, which appealed to the locally based purchaser.”

>> Youth group moves in

New venture: Andrew Simpson (left) and Richard Dean (right)

>> Linfoot man in new consultancy Two stalwarts of the Yorkshire commercial property scene have joined together to establish a new development, project and cost management consultancy in Leeds. Richard Dean, formerly managing director of the now defunct development firm KW Linfoot, and Andrew Simpson, who was a partner for international project management consultancy EC Harris, have launched The Consult Group. They aim to offer bespoke advice with innovative turnkey solutions for both public and private sector clients. The group has already secured significant public and private sector appointments throughout the North East and North West and is seeking to recruit senior professionals to join the expanding team. The pair want to open regional businesses in Newcastle, York and Teesside over the next 12 months, in addition to the group’s current office in York Place in Leeds. Dean, who when he was working for Bovis Lend Lease oversaw major projects including The Deep in Hull, said: “The economic climate is forcing change in the property industry and that’s a good thing to some extent. We are starting to see a more entrepreneurial spirit from professionals, and that is needed to give a competitive edge. The Consult Group has been borne out of a very experienced team of industry players that want to fulfil aspirations of our clients and make a real difference in the sector.” Andrew Simpson, who before his time with EC Harris worked at the Halcrow Group, said: “Collectively, we offer more than 60 years of experience in managing projects from site acquisition through to handover and everything in between.”

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Westcourt Properties has let the whole of Queens Court in Wakefield to Rathbone, a UK-wide voluntary youth sector organisation, on a three-year lease. The building, located on Queen Street, is a self contained 6,540 sq ft office building arranged over ground, first and second floors with basement storage and onsite car parking spaces. Rathbone provides opportunities for young people to re-engage with learning, training and employment. Eamon Fox of DTZ, which was joint agent on the deal along with Harvey Burns & Co and Steve Gibbins & Co, said: “The property has undergone an extensive refurbishment programme to bring it up to modern specification which has ultimately allowed us to attract a high profile occupier such as Rathbone.” Steven Jones of Harvey Burns & Co said: “During the marketing period, we remained committed to finding an occupier for the whole. Rathbone presented a perfect occupier for such a building and we take great encouragement from letting activity within what has been a difficult market.”

>> Wakefield unit goes in a month An industrial unit at Park 40 in Wakefield that was on the market for just one month has been snapped up in a 10-year deal.

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New tenant WH2L, a Wakefield-based distribution company, is expanding its business in the area by taking a lease at Unit A Park 40, which fronts Flanshaw Way. GVA Grimley brokered the deal on behalf of landlord Royal London Asset Management. Jones Lang LaSalle also advised. Iain McPhail, principal surveyor in the industrial agency team at GVA Grimley, said: “It’s encouraging to see a marked increase in activity in the industrial sector within the last quarter and a deal of this speed and nature adds weight to the general consensus now that confidence is starting to return to the marketplace.”

>> Grimley man gets gong Alex Bolton, a principal surveyor who has worked in GVA Grimley’s Leeds office for the past eight years, has become qualified as an Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) auditor. The Building Research Establishment has been developing its Environmental Assessment Method for many years. Bolton has been made an auditor for the new BREEAM In-Use, which separately assesses the performance of buildings, building management and organisations, aiming to reduce costs and improve the working environment. Bolton said: “BREEAM In-Use will help businesses achieve long-term cost-savings which I’m confident will appeal in the current Alex Bolton climate.”

>> Care provider in at Calder Park Care provider Craegmoor has become the latest occupier to move into Calder Park in Wakefield. The Worcester-based firm, which provides support for people with learning disabilities, mental health illnesses and older people, has taken space at Navigation Court at Calder Park to act as a regional base.

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

Acting on behalf of property investment company, Pinder Fry & Benjamin, Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) negotiated the five-year lease of the 2,290 sq ft unit. David Nunn at Craegmoor said: “Calder Park will enable us to provide a greater range of services across Yorkshire. Its excellent location was a major consideration in our decisionmaking process.” Craegmoor joins a diverse list of companies to establish regional headquarters at the business park, including Miller Homes, Balfour Beatty and The Highways Agency. Adam Varley, head of Office Agency at LSH Leeds, joint agent with Eddisons, said: “Public services, including the healthcare sector, do not tend to be driven by economics and have remained largely unaffected by the downturn, so it’s not surprising that these areas are now emerging as the dominant source of activity within the commercial property sector.” Remaining space at Calder Park is available from 1,300 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft.

>> DTZ takes on industry at Ashbrooke DTZ has been appointed by Ashbrooke Developments to market the remaining industrial space at Ashbrooke Park in Sherburn in Elmet. The park, a mix of industrial and office accommodation, has three plots still available capable of accommodating up to 50,000 sq ft of industrial warehouse space on a leasehold or freehold design and build basis. Existing industrial occupiers include Horsey Hick & Flower, Caffe Society, Selby Engineering and Unisplice. Paul Mack, associate director at DTZ, said: “With such a limited supply of available industrial warehouse accommodation, Ashbrooke Park presents a unique opportunity for companies looking to expand into new premises.”

RICS puts sustainability on the region’s agenda with Colin Harrop One of the main economic drivers of the regional economy in future will be the commercialisation of opportunities to come out of the UK’s push towards a low-carbon economy and the need for sustainability. For RICS (the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) the principle of sustainability seeks to balance economic, environmental and social objectives in order to meet the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This is being driven in a number of ways, one of the prime ones being the RICS Pro-Yorkshire Awards, an annual search for the region’s top quality building projects. There are eight categories, with Sustainability being one of the most popular to enter. This year the award went to pad55; a retirement development in Pickering which took an innovative approach to reducing its carbon footprint. Indeed, many of the winners scored highly in this area, and it is essential that we highlight such examples of good practice and applaud those who are leading the way. Colin Harrop is chair of RICS Yorkshire & Humber Regional Board and a chartered surveyor with King Sturge. RICS is now looking for the awards stars of 2010 and entries can be submitted until January 22, 2010. Entry forms are available from RICS events co-ordinator Lisa Metcalf, tel 01924 229 305, email lmetcalf@rics.org The awards will be presented on May 14, 2010 at Elland Road, Leeds.

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AS I SEE IT

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SOCIAL CONSCIENCE An economic downturn is no reason for changing the way you behave in business, says Todd Hannula

I am what they call a social entrepreneur, committed to the breaking down of socio-economic barriers by fostering new enterprise. Does that mean I am a left wing radical? Far from it. In fact, I left a successful private business career in 2005 to create wealth for the entrepreneur, shareholders and society. (I also came across the Atlantic from my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, to be with the woman I loved in this great county of ours, Yorkshire. But that is another story.) I carry out my work by raising aspirations and creating opportunities for those in the most disadvantaged areas of the UK; places like Harehills in the east end of Leeds, where we recently opened the Shine business incubator centre. My organisation, the Camberwell Project, develops such award-winning properties and creates robust networks to realise this vision. Yes, the focus is very much on social enterprise, which may or may not mean a profit straight away. But even if it doesn’t, what is often overlooked is that such organisations also create opportunities for businesses from more affluent parts of the country to take advantage of. Social enterprises still need suppliers, consultants and so on. This is social entrepreneurship at its best. But of course we are now in 2009, in the depths of a recession. So what is it like to do business as a social entrepreneur in this climate? Well, it’s pretty much the same as it is to do business wherever you are. Tough. But it really is amazing to see how the world changes before your eyes when a recession sets in. And I don’t just mean the price of things, the unemployment, the dour faces or

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even the opportunities. I mean the way people change. I am amazed that in a modern society we respond to widespread scarcity in such a completely neanderthal way. If you present an acute scarcity or a crisis – a famine in Africa, say, or an earthquake – everyone rallies round for 10 minutes, determined to help where they can. But when it comes to an obtuse scarcity like a recession, it’s every man or woman for themselves. I have experienced more uncooperativeness with business partners in the last 12 months than I ever did in the last 36 months. In fact, I am convinced that in a perverse way many people are worried that if they do not protect themselves at all costs, even to the detriment of their partners, they will suffer. It seems to be a case of battening down the hatches and sitting it out. Although how long we are to sit it out, or even what it is we are supposed to be sitting out, seems to be anybody’s guess. Such a scenario is an interesting one to study, however. Because I felt that if we look closely at the response to the recession, in particular those partners who actually are sticking with you, we can find the solution to an entire universe of social and economic problems. Because after all, when you look closely at what are we doing to weather the storm, you should – I hope – feel that in our business relationships we are doing the same thing we did when the economy was at full tilt. You can call them what you like, but we should follow some simple rules borrowed from the Mexican spiritualist Miguel Ruiz, themselves borrowed from the wisdom of the

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Toltecs, an ancient Mexican tribe. (Okay, so this sounds terribly New Age, but what of it? I’m an American, and we are allowed to get away with such things). Ruiz summed up his beliefs into four rules or agreements which he spelled out in a best-selling book, The Four Agreements, published in 1997. The first of these is that you should always do your best - always be more, much more, than good enough, and always stretch youself for the client. Secondly, you should above all maintain the integrity of your words. That means not speaking poorly about fellow clients, colleagues or others in the business behind their backs. Then you should never assume – certainly not assume that you always know what the client is thinking, good or bad. Finally you should never take things personally. After all, people are hardwired to be funny and cheerful, and they mostly want to do good. So don’t take it personally if your business is threatened by someone. That only wastes time and energy. Instead, you should use logic to mitigate any threats that you might perceive. If all that sounds a little too high-minded, I would like to add a fifth rule or agreement of my own. And that is a simple one. Have fun. Enjoying what you do is the best way to improve your performance. It’s silly really, when you think about it. All you need to know in business is what you learned in reception at primary school. But these simple rules are the foundation for extremely successful businesses and when they are broken on a regular basis or in an extreme way, it usually signals the downfall for that business. Need proof? Just take a look at the companies featured in Good to Great, a book about how small companies grow to be great

AS I SEE IT

written by Jim Collins, another American business guru I admire (and I promise he will be the last one I mention). Just about every company mentioned – companies like Kimberly Clark and Wells Fargo - followed these principles in their own ways. I only say all this because now more than ever, you need to be leading your business with integrity. It’s all very well preaching about how you as a business will operate when times are good. Are you still going to operate the same way when times are bad? If not, why not? What exactly are the rules of a business that shows integrity? A good friend once told me: “Integrity is how you act when no one is looking”. I think that’s incredibly important. There are endless examples you can come up with of businesses and business leaders who appeared to show great integrity when the spotlight was on them, only to come unstuck later on. Just remember that the spotlight can’t be on you all the time, and when it goes off that should be no reason to change your attitude. Integrity of your word, of your work and of your leadership is paramount at all times. Because we are all confronted with integrity challenges every day. And those challenges mean that you must choose between profit and loss. If you lead with integrity, you will sometimes have to choose loss. In the current climate that can be a hard choice. But in the long run you will find that it is the only one you can make. Now here endeth the lesson. Go away and have fun. Todd Hannula is managing director of the Camberwell Project, a Leeds-based consultancy for social enterprises. He was named Young Director of the Year at this year’s Yorkshire and Humber Director of the Year Awards, run by the Institute of Directors.

A good friend once said to me: “Integrity is how you act when no-one is looking.” I think that’s incredibly important

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ENTREPRENEUR

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in association with

PORTRAITS FROM THE ATTIK

The story behind Leeds-based design agency Attik is one of Yorkshire art made good, discovers Peter Baber This is a story about youth, about making the most of opportunities when they are offered - even if that means slightly bending the rules - about spotting a trend ahead of the game, and about the flash in the pan that was Cool Britannia. Let’s start with the youth. One day back in the mid-1980s, a panel from what was then called the Prince’s Youth Business Trust was evaluating an application for the £1,000 new business grants it was then dispensing from two Huddersfield lads who thought they had an idea worth pursuing. They didn’t look the most promising of potential businessmen, one of them freely admits today. They were still sporting the requisite tousled and crimped hair, long overcoats and winklepickers then favoured by bands like The Cure, recently in the charts with Boys Don’t Cry. “We still had punky hairstyles,” our man recalls today. “We hadn’t really got our act together and didn’t look like we were taking it too seriously.” The business plan they had put together didn’t amount to much either, being little more than a side of A4. And the only experience of enterprise they could show for themselves was that in their four years of study at Batley Design College, instead of finding bar jobs to make a bit of extra money to support themselves, they had spent many weekends in each year travelling around cities across the north of England being pavement artists. “But we must have shown something in that meeting,” our man says, for indeed the Trust did decide to support them.

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Now cue forward 15 years to the early part of this decade, and the rechristened Prince’s Trust decides it wants to give itself a little bit of publicity by finding out just what may have happened to some of the people it has supported over the years. Someone in the London office dusts down the Huddersfield file, and comes across our two young men. Is their business still around, they wonder, or has it gone the same way that, to be honest, some other of the Trust’ s beneficiaries have gone – a brief spark, then closure? A quick telephone call would soon give the answer. Because the two men in question were James Sommerville and Simon Needham, co-founders of Attik, one of Yorkshire’s brightest marketing design agencies now relocated to Leeds but with offices all around the world and clients including Coca-Cola, Nike and Toyota. Since the re-establishing of contact, Sommerville has gone on to help the Prince’s Trust on a national scale. But even in the mid-1980s, of course, £2,000 was not going to get you far. Which is where the second part of our story comes in – about making the most of opportunities and bending the rules. At about the same time Sommerville’s father first read about the Prince’s Trust and suggested they apply, Sommerville heard about the Enterprise Allowance, the grant the then Thatcher government made to try to entice wannabe business people off the dole. This writer has yet to meet anyone who actually took the enterprise allowance when they really were unemployed, and Sommerville is no >>

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ENTREPRENEUR

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exception. His grandma had already offered him the use of her attic in Paddock, Huddersfield (hence the name of the business), so he and Needham were off. “We knew the Enterprise Allowance was a strategy to reduce the dole queue,” he says, “but the smart people would resign, wait for the six weeks and apply. So instead of dole on £20 a week this gave you £40 a week. At least we knew we had that. Where we were working at the time we had to get two buses and a train to get to Woodhouse Square, but in Paddock we were no worse off.” But unlike many other recipients of both the Enterprise Allowance and the Prince’s Trust, they were not just relying on hand-outs. “We already knew what we wanted to do,” says Sommerville, “even if we were throwing ourselves in at the deep end. You were not allowed to start your business before the

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Simon drove down two or three times a week with his book and said, ‘I haven’t got time for lunch ... just say yes and we can crack on’

allowance kicked in, but everyone knows before you start your business there has to be some preliminary work, so we talked to shops in Huddersfield town centre, seeing if there was any business for us.” This was really starting out very small. They were still doing the pavement sketches to make ends meet. Sommerville says such an experience was a good grounding in enticing people to pay you. “Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle were by far the most generous cities,” he says, “even with massive unemployment, because everyone was in the town centre.” But that aside, the only real business experience he had had was through his dad, a used car salesman who also imported skateboards. Sommerville would fix up any that arrived broken, and sell them on through the local post office.

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Nevertheless, within a few years they built up a solid business providing flyers for clubs and shops in the area and other small businesses. And then came spotting a future trend early. “One day a rep called us and said: ‘There is this new piece of equipment that you guys need to be aware of. I don’t have a printer, but I do have the computer. Will you come to Bradford and see it?’ That was the first Apple Mac in Yorkshire. You had to send anything it produced down to London to be printed, and when it was printed it was done on photographic paper. It was black and white as well. But we were bowled over by the way you could take fonts and stretch them. Before that you could never see the typeface.” Getting their hands on such technology would involve a £20,000 investment – a huge amount of money at the time. But they could see that other design agencies, much more established than they were, were still sitting on the fence because they thought Apple might go the way of Betamax videos. “They felt IBM was a safe bet. We bought our first Apple Mac in 1987, and it was at least 1991 before the reputable agencies out there started to realise it was here to stay,” says Sommerville. “By that time we were on third or fourth generation, probably with half a dozen Macs, and were well ahead of the game. That punt gave us a step up. The great thing was that you saw everything you were doing on screen. You knew what you were getting before it came back. Eventually we invested in our own internal typesetting machine. That shaved half a day, and brought costs down to virtually nothing, so we could turn the business model around to have a much more rapid response.” Within months they numbered big Yorkshire names like Yorkshire Electricity and David Brown among their clients. The final part of our story mentioned at the beginning, the bit about Cool Britannia, happened a decade or so later, when Attik was opening an office in New York. They had been given some introductions over in the Big Apple, but Sommerville says it was fortunate that their first visit there happened to coincide with Labour’s 1997 election victory, and a renewal of American interests in all things British. “Every magazine stand had a Union Jack on it,” he says.

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Art in the attic: Attik creates branding and design for world-leading companies from Leeds Sommerville went out initially on a “reccy” in New York, just as a few years earlier Simon Needham had been driving down to London once a week to win enough national clients to make it worthwhile opening an office in London. Just as the Americans loved their accents – Sommerville actually relocated to New York for a couple of years – in London a few years earlier people had liked their direct northern bluntness. “We were coming out of a recession,” says Sommerville. “Clients were looking for a more economical, sharper solution, not about doing lunch, so Simon drove down two or three times a week with this book, and said, ‘I haven’t got time to do lunch, and you’re going to pay for it anyway, so just say yes and I can drive back to Yorkshire and crack on with the job’. That direct approach was refreshing. It opened doors.” But why the desire to go first national and then

global? Sommerville says that even with Yorkshire Electricity and the like giving them volume business, they realised they had a simple choice of either remaining a reasonably sized regional player in a market that was becoming increasingly crowded, or trying to break out. They chose the latter - not least because of the new opportunities it offered. “Most regional managing directors knew they had the money and would simply hand the business over to their son when the time came,” he says. “It was all manufacturing and, ‘Nay, lad, I don’t spend money on design’. So they couldn’t see what we were trying to offer. They did a brochure or catalogue, but that wasn’t a design consideration, it was a sales tool.” Instead, Sommerville and Needham knew they wanted to target a market they knew was growing. And here we go back to youth again. “In the 1990s the youth market was >>

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ENTREPRENEUR starting to have much more disposable income,” says Sommerville, “and many brands wanted to get into their minds and pockets.” To persuade these companies – many of whom were not much older than Attik itself – that they could help them do just that, Attik started producing a series of what Sommerville refers to as Noisebooks – top quality design books that could really show off what they were capable of. Their subsequent success in attracting, among others, Nike, Sega, and MTV - who introduced them to the New York market - shows just what impact these had. As with any company targeting the youth market, they soon had to set up a San Francisco office, targeting the burgeoning computer games market there and Silicon Valley. “We were doing lots of work for start-ups” says Sommerville, “but start-ups with money. That was the way it was back then. Even start-ups had a £100,000 budget to market new brands.” And it was work the company did there that led to Attik’s next development. In 2003, and against stiff competition from Saatchi’s Los Angeles office, no less, Attik won a contract to do the marketing design for the Scion, a new car owned by a subsidiary of Toyota aimed fairly and squarely at the young man who, having just passed his driving test, is looking

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This hardy background brings a different dimension when you take it to London

Vision: Attik campaigns are global sellers

for a car he can personalise. “It was a box car, all about speakers and throwing your surf board in the back. The real thing was personalisation, things like, ‘I want mine with an illustration on my roof’. The contract was perfectly set up for us. They needed an agency that could communicate to that audience. Saatchi had the global Toyota contract, but this was a niche business. It was a three-year renewable contract, and we still have the business today.” The success of the contract also alerted a worldwide audience, particularly in Japan, to Attik’s potential. And as a result, in November 2007 - just before the credit crunch bit hard - Attik accepted a takeover offer it couldn’t really refuse from Densu, Japan’s largest marketing agency. That said, there is precious little evidence of Japanese ownership in the Attik offices in Leeds. The orginal window from the Paddock attic emblazoned with the Attik brand has pride of place in the boardroom. “The Huddersfield weather has taken its toll,” Sommerville says wistfully. He insists the Japanese wanted Attik to retain its autonomy, because, “a business that came in and said, ‘we want you to do this’ would not make a good return. Densu has revenues of $17m, but they have never really cracked a strong presence in Europe. They want us

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to be operating in this youth-oriented digital marketplace.” But hold on a minute. All this talk about youth. Haven’t times moved on? Many people have surely tired of the obsession an awful lot of marketing companies seem to have with the youth market and no other, especially when you hear about how the population is ageing. Isn’t it true that the youth market is in fact diminishing? Somerville says not. “The older demographic is widening,” he says, “but the youth market is absolutely not going away. If anything, it is getting younger. The 18 to 25-year-old demographic will drop down to 13 year olds. We will have to be careful as to how those groups are communicated to, but they are becoming much more savvy.” It’s one of the reasons why, despite having received a good price for Attik - a price he won’t disclose - he and Needham are not signing off yet. Attik has had its setbacks. It actually closed its London office in 2003 as part of a consolidation following the 9/11 attacks, although Densu now wants it to open up there

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and in Tokyo. And Sommerville expects Attik to make a profit this year, in spite of everything. “I still think there are a few more chapters that need to be written,” he says. “The next three years is something we would like to be part of as a big group, and really take our brand for the first time in 25 years with their support so we can go for something. Then we can reflect and say we didn’t just take the money and run and leave the agency high and dry, but we took it to a new level.” Whatever happens, however, he will be remaining in Leeds. “Densu would never have told us to close that quaint shop in the north,” he says. “They were actually blown away by Leeds.” And he might have come a long way from the cold hard pavements of depressed northern cities in the 1980s, but he has no regrets about that. “A lot of the agencies and creative directors I see in London are from the north,” he says. “They have the backdrop of growing up in this hardy background. It brings a different dimension when you take it to London. We have had to survive.” n

Lee & Priestley’s specialist Entrepreneur Team works with clients as a strategic partner, offering a unique blend of legal, business and entrepreneurial expertise. Lee & Priestley acts for businesses across a broad range of industries and has a particular reputation for entrepreneurial expertise in the new media, media, internet, technology, creative, leisure, entertainment and healthcare sectors.

Jonathan Oxley, Managing Partner, Lee & Priestley LLP Tel: 0845 129 2300 10-12 East Parade, Leeds, LS1 2AJ www.leepriestley.com

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INTERVIEW

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WE CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW 18 months since it came back under Yorkshire management, Ultralase is still bang on target for growth, its chief executive tells Peter Baber

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

It seems hard to imagine it now in these times of tightened bank lending, but 18 months ago there was still very much a market for doing deals in this region. Multi-million deals too, the kind that really showed interest in Yorkshire businesses was still alive and well. Just such a deal was announced on February 14 2008 when Ultralase, the laser eye surgery company, was bought by UK-based private equity house 3i for £174.5m. By that time the first tremors of the credit crunch had already struck. So it seemed an appropriate Valentine’s Day present to show all Yorkshire businesses that, yes, get the business right, and lenders can still love you. How things have changed since then. But it wasn’t just the fact that the deal had been done. What was good about this story was that here was a Yorkshire business being brought back under Yorkshire control. Laser eye surgery might allegedly have its origins in the former Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, when it was being introduced in this country, there were still stories of people in Russia going on laser eye surgery cruises with all the grimness you would have expected of the Soviet Union in its twilight years. But once the market got started in the UK, it was very much focused on Yorkshire. That’s because Ultralase, which soon became and still is the market leader, was headquartered in Leeds. Dr Christopher Neave, the company’s founder, originally set up a clinic in Clatterbridge in Cheshire, but the second clinic opened at St James’s Hospital in Leeds and that quickly became the headquarters. And now with this new deal, although 3i

might have bought the company - which for three years had been owned by a Spanish publicly-listed cosmetic surgery company, Corporacion Dermoestetica - control was to return to its office in Leeds and in particular to Tony Veverka, its chief executive. That was then, as they say, and this is now. We are now in the depths of a recession, when most people are worrying more about holding onto their jobs than wondering about whether they should have laser eye surgery. So how has Ultralase fared? After all, it would have been saddled with copious amounts of debt as part of a private-equity backed deal, although the actual amounts have never been disclosed. Is it struggling to pay such debt off? Veverka insists it’s a good story, so far, with even more excitement just around the corner. “We grew 15 per cent last year,” he says, “although the final quarter was tough.” This year trade at the company, which has 32 centres, 260 employees, and turnover of around £50m, has been flat. But Veverka insists that actually means Ultralase has picked up market share because its competitors have been doing so much worse. And then there is still geographic expansion to crow about. “During the worst downturn we have seen, we have increased our footprint by opening new clinics and moving into Ireland,” he says. “We have made five acquisitions in the period. Nor does he seem particularly troubled at the idea of potential customers keeping their wallets shut. “We are right in the vanguard of big ticket purchases,” he says. “No question about it. >>

AUTUMN 09

INTERVIEW

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

INTERVIEW

AUTUMN 09

What we offer is perfectly discretionary. But in the longer run that is okay - providing you come through the immediate time better – because customers will still want the operation done. Laser eye surgery is not a perishable product like an airline seat in that respect.” But there have undoubtedly been some sacrifices. Veverka says the company was early to spot the coming downturn and made the necessary staff cuts early. “It was important that we acted,” he says. “We have taken costs out, but we have also made the company more efficient while becoming customer centric. We moved more operating hours into concentrated periods of time, which is what our customers want. And by concentrating more work in those time slots we could use labour more efficiently. It was a double win.” And now with that behind them, Veverka is excited about new prospects for the company that should come into play in the next few months. The first concerns a condition called presbyopia – eyes growing old to you and me. Laser eye surgery does not treat this condition, which is the result of the muscles in the eye getting weaker and weaker. It only acts on the eyeball itself, reshaping the cornea to correct short-sightedness and, where possible, astigmatism. This is one reason why if you go for eye surgery you will be told that you may still need reading glasses as you get older. But now new technologies are just about coming onto the market that can treat presbyopia, and Ultralase plans to be at the forefront of introducing them into the UK. “We will have our first machine to deal with presbyopia in a fairly limited range of prescriptions in October in London,” says Veverka. Interocular lens surgery – inserting a new lens into the eyeball itself – is another potential avenue. Ultralase has only recently started offering this treatment. “The first one we did was a guy in Birmingham in his late 30s who had never been able to take a driving test,” he says. Veverka says his reaction was similar to what it is for all the patients Ultralase treats – and that is one of the satisfactions of his job. “It is quite humbling when you talk with patients of ours after they have had treatment,” he says. “It is not an exaggeration to say that sometimes they are in tears.” Because the interocular process is similar to

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

It is quite humbling when you talk to patients after treatment. It is not an exaggeration to say that sometimes they are in tears

the process of removing cataracts – “to all intents and purposes the same surgery,” says Veverka – the company also hopes in the future to provide such services for the NHS and other private providers. Veverka worked in a sales and marketing role for Bupa for many years before joining Ultralase in 2000, and has evident knowledge of such markets. “It’s all

about diversification,” he says, “but not getting away from what we are good at, which is eye care.” Although he has no opthalmological training of his own, Veverka says he does have the support of a first class medical team. Plus, given that he has been with the company for nine years, he now understands a fair bit of

AUTUMN 09

the terminology and yes, clinical journals are his bedtime reading. As for standard laser eye surgery itself, Veverka says so many technical advances have now been made in it that there is little more to be developed. The company is certainly not spending much in the way of research and development in this area. But it has just launched what Veverka claims will be the final new development, Ultraelite. This is actually a development of Wavefront technology, which Ultralase pioneered some years ago. Along with correcting the shape of the cornea, Wavefront was also designed to remove slight imperfections and abrasions in the eyeball. Unfortunately, in some cases it introduced some barely noticeable imperfections as well. Ultraelite now does away with these. Veverka denies that those who went for the original Wavefront procedure may now feel put out. “There is nothing wrong with the original procedure,” he says. “It was the best there was at time. The imperfections didn’t mean you couldn’t read, just that you might sometimes for example see halos around streetlights at night. And now the new technology can make things slightly better.” If such projects come off, all well and good. For if truth be told, it has not always been all plain sailing for Ultralase. Veverka freely admits that when he joined, despite the technology being around for the best part of a decade, the company was still run very much as a “cottage industry”. He had actually been recruited by what was then Granville Baird, the first private equity house to invest in Ultralase, to bring some sales and marketing professionalism to the company. And for the first few years that is exactly what he did, growing the business by establishing proper customer contact centres and widening the network of clinics. But some time in 2003 things started to go wrong. There was a dip in the market, and for a while there was talk that the individual within Granville Baird who had first decided to invest in Ultralase had made a mistake which would destroy his career. This is a prediction that, we are happy to report, has not come true. Veverka says the malaise was largely down to ill-informed reports in the press. “It was easy

to find someone who had ageing problems or a dry eye,” he says. “Actually, laser eye surgery was by then, and still is, the safest and most effective elective procedure in the world in terms of its treatment outcomes. But in 2003 it was still new to the public at large. Boots had entered the market and they were an easy target, being one of the most trusted brands in the UK. Some journalist had tracked down some Boots patient, and this was the first time anything negative had come to the fore. That had a cyclical effect on the market.” Not half. Boots announced that it was withdrawing from the market after only a couple of years, despite spending many millions getting into it in the first place. How can Veverka be so confident about the safety of the procedure? Easy – because he has had it himself. “I did once wear glasses and contact lenses and I was very, very short sighted,” he says. “While I was at Bupa I came to one or two of the hospitals that had this technology. In those days, I was out of range. But when I was approached by Granville Baird, while I was doing the due diligence, it dawned on me that the technology had moved on a bit and I could be treated. So before joining, I went and had treatment. I will never forget the first time I woke up afterwards.” The problem with the public perception, he says, was that the public did not realise that technology had moved on in this way. But scare stories, he says, don’t always spell doom for all those involved. “In the long term it wasn’t too bad,” he says. “When the fundamental thing you are doing is safe, that makes people decide, not so much to not have it done, but to be a bit more careful about where they have it done.” And, he says, because Ultralase’s marketing has always been fully open and informative – with, for example, a forum on its website where anybody can discuss treatment – that played into the company’s hands. So why then, after all this, was a Spanish company so keen to take Ultralase under its wing? Veverka chuckles. “That’s an interesting tale,” he says. “We had a good network of clinics, and we operate in the premium sector. They were successful in their home market with cosmetic surgery, and felt they could use

INTERVIEW

the Ultralase model to introduce their surgery into the UK. Their big driver wasn’t our business, but the network of clinics. “But actually looking back such an argument is flawed, because laser eye surgery and cosmetic surgery do not sit that well together. Having people mess around with your eyes is really quite a big deal. I am not saying having cosmetic surgery isn’t, but it’s done for drivers of beauty and vanity, and the clinical element isn’t that great. Most of the drivers for laser eye surgery are actually the inconvenience and hassle of having to wear glasses or contact lenses.” So after a couple of years where Veverka said the UK team did their best to try and work to the Spanish plans, they agreed to a parting of the ways. Throughout that time there had never been any attempt to launch Ultralase in Spain. Veverka would say that is because the Spanish market is far more mature. Ultralase may be the longest-established laser eye surgery provider in Europe, but the Spaniards have taken to the surgery far more enthusiastically – as have the Americans. “Penetration rates of addressable population in the USA are around 9 per cent,” says Veverka. “In the UK they are 3 per cent.” That of course means there is much more for Ultralase to go at in the UK. “The public are getting there,” he says, “but it takes longer for the public in the UK to accept the service for a couple of reasons. One is caution – they are slightly more risk averse in the UK. And because this is elective surgery and therefore private, historically there has been an aversion to paying for healthcare, although this is changing. Laser eye surgery will never certainly be on the NHS.” You can sense the former Bupa man talking here. One other obstacle Veverka could and does subsequently mention is the traditional optician, who might see surgery as a threat to their business and so play up the scare stories. It turns out Ultralase is working on that too, among other things by making an alliance with Dollond & Aitchison that could see some Dollond & Aitchison opticians trained in the surgery to the level of those employed by Ultralase. As Dollond & Aitchison has now merged with Boots Opticians, in a roundabout way Ultralase is now bringing its old competitor back into the market – on a surer footing. n

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

BUSINESS LUNCH

AUTUMN 09

ON THE CARDS In his first ever interview with a business magazine, Dean Hoyle of Card Factory reveals to Peter Baber how concentrating on the message – and making it a good one – has got him where he is >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

BUSINESS LUNCH One morning in the early part of this decade, Dean Hoyle, chairman of Card Factory, received a phone call. “Dean, how are you doing?” said the caller, who Hoyle recognised as one of his suppliers. “Fine,” said Hoyle. “Great,” said the caller. “Listen, I just wanted a quick word. It’s about your prices. I wouldn’t normally interfere, see, but you have got to put them up. We are really getting pressure from the industry here.” And Hoyle thought, “They’re at it again”. This was by no means the first such call he had received. Recently all his suppliers had been acting the same passive aggressive way – do what we say, the hint was, or we’ll block you out. Classic cartel behaviour. Hoyle had undoubtedly been ruffling feathers. His chain of shops, which by the time of the call numbered around 100 and employed around 800 people, had been making a name for itself by offering just one thing: value. A Card Factory shop doesn’t include one section of general cards and another section offering significantly more expensive cards that are masqueraded as being ‘artistic’. “People who go to other stores might find 100ft of grand designs and 2ft of value,” he says. “We just have 100ft of value.” Nor will you find all sorts of special occasion cards for your great uncle’s birthday, stepbrother’s driving test success or brother-inlaw’s civil ceremony. “Clinton’s may have on average 5,000sq ft of space per store,” he says, “but we normally go in for around 1,000sq ft. So we don’t really have room for all these minimal runs of cards that stay on the shelves for weeks.” What you will find instead is cards priced as keenly as possible. “We have a clear pricing policy,” he says. “In those days the leading chain was Birthdays, and if I saw them selling a card for £1.20 which had cost them 20p to buy I knew I could sell the same card for 59p and still make a profit.” With talk like that, it was easy to see why some in the industry might be alarmed, and felt it was time to force this little arriviste to merge with the rest of the market. But Hoyle clearly thought differently. His experience had taught him one thing: if you want to be successful in retail, you never, ever

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

AUTUMN 09

I could see that if we produced our own product it would be very, very hard for the industry to respond mix your message. So if your message is value, you stick to it. “Several people said we should sue them for making such threats,” he says. “But I knew the waste of time that would involve. I felt we could either sue them, or I could try to save my business. So I saved my business.” So almost overnight, Card Factory abandoned all its suppliers and started sourcing and producing virtually all its own material - from the UK, Eastern Europe and China. Discussing the incident today over lunch at Malmaison in Leeds, Hoyle admits it was the toughest experience in his career. Tucking into a fine fillet of seabass in a lobster bisque, he says he was clearly worried about taking on such an extra responsibility. “We were retailers,” he says, “so what did we know about manufacturing? I didn’t want a gorilla on my back.” He adds that he believes

there are countless other new retailers in other sectors who have experienced similar pressures, but have given in. “But I could see that if we went down the road of producing our own product,” he says, “it would be very, very hard for the industry to respond. We could dictate our own prices and vastly improve the quality of our product.” It has proved a wise decision. For Card Factory’s store tally now stands at 500. The company employs 4,500 people, and is currently the most profitable specialist card retailer in the UK, with a turnover of around £175m. For the past three years it has also been backed by private equity house Lloyds TSB Development Capital (LDC), which is currently a minority shareholder. And this year Hoyle was named Retail and Consumer Products Entrepreneur of the Year at the nationwide Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He is still clearly very much the boss of the show. Such a position is one he says he has wanted to have since his childhood. It’s not hard to see why. He discovered when he was seven that his mother had been planning to give him up for adoption as soon as he was born because of her family’s disapproval of her unmarried status, but then changed her mind. “I was due to have been adopted by an Edinburgh doctor,” he says. “I could have been Scottish.” He was subsequently brought up in a working class family, first in Morley then in Heckmondwike, by his mother and stepfather. His real father was paying maintenance, and Hoyle met him a few times after discovering his parentage, but he has since lost touch. He denies that the discovery had a huge impact on him, but it is hard to imagine it might not make someone feel that little bit more insecure and determined to work things out on their own. Certainly, from a very early age he was determined to find out why things were the way they were, and in particular how much money people were making from what they did. “I am even wondering that right now,” he says, looking around at Malmaison’s elegant décor. Because he had little time for education – he believes it’s not possible to train someone to

AUTUMN 09

BUSINESS LUNCH

Rare event: Dean Hoyle (right), has built Card Factory into a major business, but keeps his personal profile low, generally avoiding interviews become an entrepreneur, for example – he left school as soon as he was able in 1983, and after a couple of years on the Youth Training Scheme and as an apprentice landed a job re-filling coffee vending machines. But he already had a line for a quick business opportunity, in this case selling dressing gowns. The places he was going to refill the vending machines – factories, offices – provided a fertile selling ground. Research he had done put him in touch with a Turkish supplier who sold him the gowns at £5 a piece. He freely admits now that all he did was cut off the label, claim they were knock-offs from Marks & Spencer, and sell them each for a tenner. “I would arrive at the office very early in the morning to pick up the vending machine refills so that no one could see what else was in the

car,” he says of this neat little business, which only came to an end when his boss decided unexpectedly to join him in the car one day. “As we rounded the corner into the first factory I was due to visit that day,” he remembers now, “there was a queue of women waiting with their money for the gowns. I was sacked on the spot.” That didn’t deter him, however. Within months he had answered a business for sale advert in the local paper and had sold his first car (a Toyota MR2) for £5,000 to buy a business selling greeting cards out of a van. He admits it was a nervous time - the late 1980s - and he and his wife Janet were paying a mortgage of £400 a month on a £30,000 property. “But at least she was a social worker, with a regular income. And in the five years I had that business I grew it from having a profit

of £8,000 on a turnover of £36,000 to a profit of £50,000 on a turnover of £150,000.” He sold it on successfully too, and it still exists today. It had been founded in 1964 by the man who sold it to Hoyle, and it’s amazing to think a business selling cards out of vans has survived longer than some well-known high street retailers, but it’s true. The reason Hoyle sold was that, having got the bug, he wanted to become one of those high street retailers himself. But he didn’t jump at the first opportunity offered. “In 1997 I finally saw a To Let sign on a property I knew I could make money with, right by the market in Wakefield,” he says. “It was a secondary location, but I knew it would have just the right footfall for what I wanted.” Even so, opening your first store is a nerve-wracking experience for even the >>

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

BUSINESS LUNCH wildest optimist. Hoyle remembers the day – November 1 1997 – very well. He and his wife had been up until 4am getting ready. He went back home for a couple of hours sleep, but was in again at 8am for the opening. “By 9.15am there were only a couple of people and I was nervous,” he says. “By 9.30am there were still only three or four and I told Janet I was going upstairs. At 10am she shouted, ‘Dean – come down here’. I went down, fearing the worst, but we were jam packed. When I went to pick up the kids from the in-laws that night, I knew we were on to something. I told my mother-in-law that within 10 years we would have 10 shops. In fact, we now have 480.” But that is not to say it hasn’t been hard slog. His wife initially negotiated three months off with her employer when the first shop opened, but has never been back to her old job. And the business was five years old before the couple and their two sons went on a family holiday. In fact, Hoyle has what at first might appear to be a particularly old-fashioned view of the whole idea of knocking off. “Anyone who is switched on to their business 24/7 is halfway there,” he says. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any time off. He claims he leaves work in time to pick the kids up from school, but whenever and wherever he is relaxing – walking the dog, for example – he is mulling over the business and how to improve it. “When I get home I talk shop with my wife,” he says. It’s no surprise then, that he has very clear ideas on retailing. Woolworths, while being a budget brand, went under because everything it sold – stationery, clothes, “your first vinyl as a teenager” – started being sold better by specialist outlets. He thinks WH Smith could share a similar fate. And he believes there is every virtue in being in the budget value end of the market. “That means we can have a shop in Harrogate or Batley,” he says, “because people in Harrogate may still want to buy value. Expensive retailers can only go in niches like Harrogate.” In recent years he has acquired what he says is an exceptional management team – first Richard Hayes, now chief executive, who was his bank manager, then Tony Barraclough, a former business owner and a friend of a friend

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

AUTUMN 09

Malmaison, Swinegate, Leeds was the venue for the business lunch enjoyed by Peter Baber and Dean Hoyle. Dean Hoyle enjoyed fillet of seabass in lobster bisque, while Peter Baber opted for rack of lamb in mustard and herb crust from the menu of beautifully presented dishes prepared with local ingredients and served in elegant surroundings. See www.malmaison-leeds.com tel 0113 3981000

he got to know when he let him use their warehouse for a one-off job some years ago. The LDC deal ended with Chris Beck, a Grant Thornton accountant who had worked on the deal, joining him. And most recently Darren Bryant, formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers, has joined the fold. Such a team has enabled him to take up the chairman’s role, and he insists there is still much to go at. The chain won’t hit UK market saturation until it has around 1,000 stores. “And we haven’t even touched Ireland yet,” he says. Then there are other English-speaking territories like the US to consider as well, although that would be covered most likely by a franchise. “You have to remember that New York state alone is as large as the UK,” he

says. “If you are big in the UK you have 500 stores. In the USA you have to have 5,000.” Yet although his eye may still be firmly on the metaphorical ball of running a retail chain, in the past two years he has allowed himself to have some focus on a real life ball, by taking a stake in Huddersfield Town, a football club he has supported all his life. This year he became majority shareholder in the Terriers, taking over from Ken Davy (although the latter has controversially kept ownership of the club’s Galpharm Stadium). He is all too keenly aware of the success of the likes of Burnley – a town and club not too dissimilar to Huddersfield – in reaching the Premiership. But he insists that there is much to be done in terms of investing in the club, which has been in the doldrums of late, before any real aspirations like that can be met. “We have to make sure any improvement we make is sustainable,” he says. Wise words indeed, when you consider the club’s recent association with former Pace man Barry Rubery. He invested millions only to see it miss promotion and crash into administration. Hoyle is more proud of the fact that his club was the first to offer the front of its shirts to charity for free; to Yorkshire Air Ambulance. “With a club like Huddersfield you have to be much more aware of your responsibility to the community than you might be with, say, Manchester United,” he says. And although he is now the chairman of a football club he has absolutely no interest in rubbing shoulders with the likes of Roman Abramovich. He’s not really interested in rubbing shoulders or being in the spotlight anywhere in fact – this conversation being the first interview he has ever given to a business magazine. He is, he says, a man of simple pleasures, who would actually prefer fish and chips to some of the more succulent dishes available at Malmaison. What, so no creature comforts at all, even after doing so well in business? Well, perhaps one. It turns out that whenever he goes on a sourcing trip to China, he insists that whoever is organising the trip makes sure he gets to spend each night in a hotel back over the border in Hong Kong. Spending 24 hours in China, it seems, is going just a little bit too far. ■

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30/9/09 15:52:07

MORRISON ON WINE

AUTUMN 09

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

AUTUMN 09

MORRISON ON WINE

Ann Morrison, director of private client services at Grant Thornton in Leeds, broadens her horizons with two tipples from the Languedoc ... Having just returned from a short break in Paris, I was delighted to find that the two wines BQ had selected for me to review were both from France. My husband and I wasted no time in getting on with the sampling, choosing the red to accompany our dinner on Friday night. I’m very fond of French reds and I was pleased to see that this was from the 2005 vintage - a particularly good year. The wine itself - Mas de L’Ecriture - L’Emotion Occitane - is a Cotes de Languedoc. It’s not an area I’m that familiar with, but the bottle said it was ‘appellation controllee’ - another good sign. According to the label it comprises mainly syrah and grenache grapes, with the addition of cinsault and carignan. The label itself is worth a mention - not the usual picture of a Chateau (maybe those are just for the British market) but decorated with bright abstract shapes - very French, we thought. Not really knowing what to expect, we poured the wine and did the swirling around the glasses thing, sticking our noses in and observing that it didn’t have a strong bouquet (though if we’d followed the instruction to open two hours before serving it might have been more noticeable). However, my husband thought he was getting late summer hedgerow smells, and we did a bit more swirling and sniffing, noted that it had ‘good legs’ and a pale rim, both good signs, then got onto the tasting. We are very fortunate to live in Ilkley, which boasts one of the country’s best butchers Lishmans - and the wine went very well with our evening meal of fillet steak from Lishmans, new potatoes, sugar snaps and béarnaise sauce. Bearing out the hedgerow theory, the wine had definite blackberry flavours, quite long on the palate, and was very good both as an aperitif and with the meal. Not as fruity as a Bordeaux or Burgundy, but lively and with a certain je ne sais quoi. Anyway, by the end of

the bottle we were planning our next trip to Paris and agreed that this wine would be worth looking out for. We saved the second bottle, a white, for Sunday night, as we had bought cod loin steaks in Ramus (another plug for shopping in Ilkley) and my husband planned to serve these pan fried, with a chorizo, onion, tomato and butter bean cassoulet. There were even fewer clues on this bottle as to what to expect - a 2006 Domaine de Clovallon viognier - but again it was a very pleasant surprise. A pale straw colour, with initial fruitiness to the taste, it reminded me of peaches at first but then developed on the palate into a very refreshing, not too dry wine. After sampling a glass we agreed that it was packed with flavours and was quite zingy; a wine that would be nice on its own as a summer afternoon tipple and went equally well with our fish supper; the rich flavours of the food contrasting well with the clean smoothness of the wine. This one was also from the Languedoc region, and we agreed that we should be a bit more adventurous in our choices in future. Another trip to France is definitely on the cards. n Anne Morrison's wines were kindly supplied by Skipton-based Terroir Wines, specialist in Languedoc wines. Find out more at www.terroirlanguedoc.co.uk

Terroir Wines Mas de L’Ecriture L’Emotion Occitane 2005, £12.50 This latest cuvée is made with the same meticulous care and attention as the other wines using grapes from the same vines. The idea is that it does not need as much time to age as the other cuvées and so is a wine which can be drunk immediately. The red fruit and blackberries on the nose complemented by a touch of the garrigue, lends to a silky generous fruit and spice on the palate. Domaine de Clovallon Les Aires 2006, £13.50 Similar in style to wines from Condrieu, this wine is one of the best Viognier from the Languedoc. The north facing slopes at high altitudes in the Haut Languedoc along with the hard work in the vineyard and minimum intervention make this a fine and delicate wine it is. Peach, pear and citrus notes on the nose give way to a creamy, delicate yet complex palate with a clean and long finish. A truly excellent wine.

Bearing out the hedgerow theory, the wine had definite blackberry flavours ... lively with a certain je ne sais quoi

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

FASHION

AUTUMN 09

Bewildered by dress-down, dress-up and smart-casual? What does it all mean, and are there any circumstances when a Hawaiian shirt is right for work? Chris Porter attempts to make some sense of the non-sensical world of work dress

If the last decade brought a new comfort to corporate dressing, aiming to take the weight of formality from those wide, padded shoulders, inevitably for many men Dress Down, as the American phenomenon was termed, caused more consternation on a Friday morning than was perhaps intended. The dull uniform of the dark two-piece - like the archetypal office clone that was Gregory Peck in 1967â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit - was simply and hastily replaced by another copycat uniform, with a flurry of starch and steam, pressed chinos and packetfresh polo-shirts. Monday to Thursday the boss may have had a better suit than the office junior, but on Friday everybody got to look equally terrible. Studies since have questioned the founding Productivity Through Relaxation theory too. Indeed, dressing business-like seems to make some workers think businesslike, quite aside from the issue of presentation when client-facing. Anyone who >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

THE NEW SMART CASUAL 48

AUTUMN 09

FASHION

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

FASHION

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envisages dealing happily with a solicitor or bank manager dressed in Hawaiian shirt will get the picture. And famously, studies have shown that only 7 per cent of human communication is verbal. In other words, what you wear really counts. “It’s true that dress-down has been bewildering at times because it’s been so open to interpretation, to the extent that some businessmen have had to keep several outfits at work,” suggests Andrea Pesaresi, managing director for Zegna Europe. “They’ve had to think more about their clothes than business. But at the end of the day, dress-down has been, and will continue to be, a positive step. It has given men a freedom of expression in clothing that wasn’t there before.” Yet while tough years are typically echoed in a smartening up, recent years have seen many men’s confusion worsen as the Dress Down policy has spread, from business to business, from media to banking, property to even accountancy, from Friday to every day of the week. Some men have consequently looked too done-up for the newly relaxed environment or have, worse still, donned their weekend gear - whatever they’d wash the car in - without regard for the need to maintain some degree of formality in the workplace. Either way, the concern remains: a survey by Reed, the recruitment company, shows that British employees now spend almost a fifth of their salaries trying to look good at the office. “I joined a new company and wore a shortsleeved shirt with long shorts on the first Dress Down day, and that would have been fine at my old company,” explains an account manager for a London advertising agency. “I wasn’t meeting any clients, but still it was jokes about Bondi Beach all day. I didn’t do that again.” “Confusion is partly a result of employers not providing unambiguous guidelines, because one man’s casual is another man’s smart,” suggests Lawrence Levy, head of specialist recruitment consultants Levy Associates. “But it’s not dress per se that may spoil an employee’s chances of advancement, but a failure to appreciate that particular dress codes are part of the culture of the organisation they work for.” >>

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FASHION

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A standard suit can hide average quality, but casualwear won’t. Dress down doesn’t mean going down in style or quality. Dress down is really about dressing up casual

The ‘smart-casual’ enigma needs rules, much as there are (albeit evolving ones) for corporate dress for the rest of the week. Keep it classic: go overtly fashionable and you begin to look not only inappropriate – your attire should never outshine your product – but your colleagues will start to think you are more dandy than deal-maker. Keep it simple: no workwear, no pub-wear, no residue of Dress-Up stiffness. And keep it high quality. “A standard suit can hide average quality, but casualwear won’t,” suggests Jan Borghardt, creative director of shirt brand Eton, which has a slim-fit line for more casual dressing. “Dress Down doesn’t mean going down in style or quality. Dress Down is really about dressing up casual.” Darker colours better allow for repeated wear, while the traditional menswear palette - charcoal, navy, white - retains a degree of presentability should an emergency meeting arise. For the same reason, although ties are left at home, tops should have collars, jeans, if permissable, be indigo and undistressed. >>

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FASHION

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You may have a fine eye for the character of vintage, but in the professional world a hole is a hole. Certainly, anything bright or athletic, obviously hi-tech fabrics, neon colours, graphics or billboard-sized branding are appropriate for track and field, but not the fast track. Trainers are fine if you’re a runner in the office junior sense, but not if you’re in charge, or want to be - try clean loafers or suede shoes or ankle boots instead. And, yes, shorts are almost definitely out. There is, however, also a middle line to Dress Down. Soft tailoring, from the likes of Savile Row tailors Kilgour, Steven Hitchcock and Charlie Allen, is the latest old thing made new in suiting. Essentially, it is classic tailoring with all the stuffing removed and cleverly cut to be cardigan soft, yet retaining the formal structure. The result? Business smartness with casual comfort, a smart layer that works in over-heated office and doesn’t weight heavily across the back, a look that works as well in bar as boardroom. It could not be more timely. “Although Dress Down does help relax an employee, to be reasonably smart is good for everybody in terms of creating a generally positive work culture, and smartness is generally always advisable when you’re clientfacing,” suggests Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University Management School. “The fact is that smart-casual is open to a plethora of interpretations, so inevitably we try to create an alternative uniform. And as in school, uniforms serve a purpose: they serve to make a group cohesive.” So if you find yourself wearing similar kit to your colleagues, don’t feel as though you have failed to take full advantage of Dress Down’s welcome opportunity for more self-expression. Rather, congratulate yourself on having conducted successful negotiations - through the minefield of style, personality, comfort and unspoken corporate expectations that is Dress Down. n

Images: Ermenegildo Zegna, www.zegna.com

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FASHION

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EQUIPMENT

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TIME FLIES

If you’re wearing a Bremont watch on your wrist, you’re flying high, asserts Chris Porter

Launching a new watch brand in a market that esteems heritage and history may be one thing. Launching one with the proud boast, not of its Swiss or German design, but of its Britishness, may seem foolhardy. And yet when brothers Giles and Nick English’s father Euan was killed in 1995 in an air crash that also badly injured Nick, that is what the pair set about doing, putting their careers in the City behind them in favour of doing something for the love of it, rather than the tidy bonus. It took a decade of planning, during which time they set up an aircraft restoration business, but in 2007 Bremont was launched. “We were brought up building grandfather clocks, so an interest in watches was always there,” explains Giles English. “But there is also a practical appeal in these watches. Flying has everything to do with time. “I’ll admit that I thought it would be easier to launch the company than it turned out to be. In terms of getting parts, for example, as a small company you’re right at the back of the queue. And how slow the watch industry can be is painful sometimes. “But luckily, we have never had investors breathing down our necks, so we have been free to grow at our own pace. We’ve been able to create the >>

Boys’ own: Brothers Giles and Nick English combine their love of flying with their love of flying high in business with their watch brand Bremont; beloved of adventurers the world over

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EQUIPMENT

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watches we most would like to wear ourselves, which is quite a luxury.” Indeed, what is perhaps more remarkable is the swiftness with which Bremont has been established among serious watch buffs (some models already have a three-year waiting list) and those, like the brothers, with a penchant for vintage aircraft. The brand’s association with flying is fast becoming its signature. Bremont comes from the French farmer, and former pilot, into whose pea field in Champagne the brothers once had to make an emergency landing in their vintage bi-plane. Bremont’s EP120 model also contains parts of the Mark V Spitfire of the same name which, in one notorious day in 1942, made six German kills. It is all very Boys’ Own - and Bremont can count adventurer Bear Grylls, yachtsman Mike Golding and Everest climber Jake Meyer among its fans, enhancing the allure of a brand whose watches will be worn by men drawn to their spirit of adventure and the tough utility of their design. Even if the closest you come to sitting in a cockpit is turning left into First Class when you board for a business trip, the appeal is clear. “Bremont watches are about going out there and pushing yourself, in whatever way,” suggests Giles English. “A watch says a lot about you. Any brand needs to have a theme.” The English brothers’ connections have put them on the inside track of the luxury goods industry too - John Ayton, founder of the Links of London jewellery chain, and Robert Bensoussan, former CEO of Jimmy Choo shoes, have both provided expert advice. The company was also smart in supplying the actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman with watches for their televised motorcycle trek, A Long Way Down, and it also now sponsors the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The timing, far from being a disastrous time for growth, has been good for Bremont. In part, Giles English argues, because other companies with a reputation for pilots’ watches have “lost a bit of their soul”, by becoming part of luxury goods conglomerates and by chasing fashion. If English likes to describe Bremont’s rigorously tested, tool-like aesthetic as being one of high functionality (later this year it launches its first diving watch the SuperMarine 500, named after the Schneider Trophy seaplane) it certainly makes its watches stand apart from the glitzier styles some more established brands have produced, perhaps at a cost to their image. Bremont is also playing a part in a renaissance of British watchmaking. The world-class bespoke watchmaker Roger Smith, based on the Isle of Man, has in recent years been joined not only by Bremont, but by the likes of Graham and also Dent, pioneer of the marine chronometer and maker of the clock mechanism on the tower at the Palace of Westminster (also home to Big Ben). Watch collectors are beginning to appreciate that before mass-manufactured watches squeezed out the artisan, and the Americans and then the Swiss came to dominate the industry, Britain once led the way. Hans Wilsdorf, after all, launched a company here in 1905, renaming it Rolex in 1908; its name, inspired by the sound of the winder, coming to him while sitting on a London bus. “Britishness is part of what makes Bremont different,” explains English. “It is probably too soon to speak of a renaissance, but certainly there is a new >>

Time of his life: Charley Boorman sporting his Bremont watch during the filming of his and Ewan McGregor’s motorcycle adventure A Long Way Down. Boorman is one of several adventurers to endorse Bremont

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

Britishness is part of what makes Bremont different ... there is a new credibility for English watches now; people are thinking about them again

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EQUIPMENT

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There is a huge history in British watchmaking that nobody seems to know about, but there is very much a British style of movement

Form and function: Bremont watches, known for their blend of great design and industrial-strength functionality, are favoured by sportspeople and explorers. Bremont’s first diving watch launches later this year

credibility for British watches now; people are thinking about them again. “After all, there is a huge history in British watchmaking that nobody seems to know about. But there is very much a British style of movement, right down to the thickness of the plates.” The slowdown affecting many giants of the watch industry means Bremont is no longer at the back of the queue, and the downturn has freed up time and components from the Swiss workshops that supply the parts inside Bremont’s distinctive, curved, British-made steel cases - manufactured by a Cambridge company that also, appropriately, finishes jet turbine blades. In fact, business is so good that the company can even afford to give its watches away, albeit once its recipient has undergone something of an ordeal. For when Bremont launches its entirely British-made MB1 watch at the end of this year, it will award one to every pilot to survive a crash using an ejector seat made by the pioneering British company Martin-Baker. Thankfully, a more commercial version, the MB2, will be available for those who would rather not go through the trauma of being rocket-propelled out of an aircraft at 30,000ft, which is a relief. ■

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hammonds excels

in providing proper professional advice and guidance and the team is

refreshingly different â&#x20AC;?

in its approach to its clients Mark Phillips Finance Director Zenith Vehicle Contracts Limited

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3225 - Hammonds Business Quarter AD_V1.indd 1

16/09/2009 16:48

MOTORING

AUTUMN 09

LEGALLY GREEN

Jonathan Jones, head of the Leeds office of Hammonds LLP, goes legally green with Lexus’s new hybrid RX450h

How much? £41,600 On sale in the UK: Now Engine: 3456cc 24V V6, 2 x AC synchronous motors, total 295bhp @ 6000rpm, 233lb ft @ 4800rpm Transmission: CVT Performance: 0-62mph in 7.8 secs, top speed 124mph, fuel consumption 44.8mpg, 148g/km CO2 Weight 2205kg, made in steel (weight for SE-L) Size (length x width x height in mm) 4770 x 1885 x 1685

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MOTORING

“All pretty straightforward really”. Those were the words of the man as he dropped off the Lexus Hybrid RX450h which I was to be test driving over the next couple of days. Now, late for a meeting and faced with a dazzling array of buttons, I wish I’d paid more attention. To start with, I couldn’t find anywhere to put the key (no rude suggestions please). There was no handbrake and the engine was so quiet that I couldn’t work out whether it was still on or if I’d stalled it. To cap it all, I was sitting so far from the steering wheel that my feet didn’t touch the pedals. I’d been looking forward to the test drive >>

The idea of a car able to switch intelligently between petrol and electric appeals to my ‘soft’ green credentials

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MOTORING

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since I’d been asked to do it. The idea of a car being able to switch intelligently between petrol and electric modes depending upon speed and revs appealed to my ‘soft’ green credentials. I would feel like I was doing my bit for the planet. A car that was high performance and built to a high specification would make the case for considering the Lexus Hybrid as a serious alternative to more mainstream cars compelling. Ten minutes later I was on the road having worked things out. There is no slot for the key because the car ‘senses’ that the key is within the car and allows itself to be turned on at the press of a button. The handbrake is a pedal in the foot well and is easy to operate once you know where it is. The ignition also returns the driver’s seat to a series of pre-programmed positions. All very swish and well thought through. In a similar vein, there were a number of other

gizmos. The SatNav was logical and easy to use. Current speed and instructions from the SatNav are projected onto the windscreen so you aren’t constantly looking down at the instrument panel. Putting the car into reverse (intentionally or otherwise) triggers a camera at the rear so that you can see where you’re going without having to turn round. I did find

the automatic seat warmers a little disconcerting (was the unexplained warming sensation a sudden loss of bladder control?) and I couldn’t work out how to turn it off. Would I swap my current car, a BMW X5, for a Lexus Hybrid? Yes, I think I would. My principal concerns were around performance and spec and the Lexus was equal or better on both counts. It shifted seamlessly between electric and petrol and was quick and powerful on acceleration. The driver’s toys were easy to work (in the end) and very similar to the BMW. It is safe and reliable and big enough to accommodate the entire family. What ultimately swings it though are the Lexus’ fuel economy and green credentials. This is the way forward surely? n The Lexus RX450h tested by Jonathan Jones was provided by Lexus Bradford, Canal Road, Bradford, tel 0844 856 4179, www.lexus.co.uk/bradford

A 14% BENEFIT-IN-KIND RATINg. SO LOw yOU CAN TAKE THE TAXMAN FOR A RIDE. 299 DIN hp

148g/km CO2

44.8 mpg

WELCOME TO FORWARD LIVING

THE NEw FULL HyBRID RX 450h The new Full Hybrid RX450h delivers a breakthrough 299 DIN horsepower, with 148g /km CO2 emissions thanks to the advanced Full Hybrid system which switches seamlessly between electric and petrol power. The electric motors work in tandem with the 3.5 litre V6 engine to deliver maximum efficiency and performance. Together with a luxurious interior with sophisticated Remote Touch technology, this makes the new RX450h a car to be desired by everyone, even the taxman.

For more information or to arrange a test drive call 0844 856 4179.

LEXUS BRADFORD Station Road, Off Canal Road Bradford BD1 4SF Tel 0844 856 4179 www.lexus.co.uk/bradford

RX series prices start at £41,600. Model shown is RX 450h SE-L Premier at £56,085 OTR including optional metallic paint at £580. Prices are correct at time of going to press and include, VAT, delivery, number plates, full tank of fuel, one year’s road fund licence and £55 first registration fee. For hybrid models, certain components within the hybrid drivetrain have a five-year or 60,000 mile warranty, whichever comes first.

RX 450h fuel economy figures: extra urban 47.1mpg (6.0L/100km), urban 42.8mpg (6.6L/100km), combined 44.8mpg (6.3L/100km). CO2 emissions 148g/km.

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INTERVIEW

GRAND DESIGNS? Regeneration in Bradford city centre finally seems to be moving forward. But is everyone happy about that? Peter Baber finds out The news coming out of Bradford this summer should, on the face of it, have made even the most pessimistic Bradfordian joyful. It certainly gets Adrian Naylor, Bradford City Council’s executive member for regeneration and the economy, enthusiastic; as you might expect from someone who, after many years building up a family pharmacy business, is a recent recruit to the Conservative group on the council. For a start there is the news that the City Park, including its famous mirror pool, is finally to go ahead after the council, Yorkshire Forward, the Homes and Communities Agency and the Regional Transport Board agreed to fund it. Naylor is keen to stress just why the pool is significant – and not least because it will involve water returning to the city centre for the first time in decades, so that the second syllable in the name Bradford can once again be justified. “The mirror pool is the size of two football pitches,” he says. “There will be 100 fountains, with one major one that will be 30 metres high. You will be able to adapt it so you can have mist to walk through, but no water. Or you can create a mini-lake 200mm deep, and if you allow that to drain slightly then special walkways within the lake will begin to appear. “For the evening, you can drain the entire lake into a tank being created to hold the water and you will then have a space that can take 10,000 people. That kind of activity draws people into the city centre.” Bradford city centre should then be set for a run of major new events. And with what

seems like perfect timing, just a month after the news about the mirror pool, the council also granted outline planning permission for New Victoria Place, a mixed use development incuding a hotel and bars as well as office space that will link in to the City Park. So anyone visiting the city centre will have plenty to keep them amused and easily find somewhere to stay the night. More reasons to head to Bradford: over the summer Bradford also became the first ever UNESCO City of Film, and with it became a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities

Network that in the UK also includes Edinburgh (as a City of Literature) and Glasgow (as a City of Music). Naylor says this announcement has already increased Bradford’s profile on the international stage exponentially. “One minute past midnight on the day it was announced the Hollywood Reporter was reporting about this,” he says, “and we noticed a pattern of media distribution enquiries running throughout India and elsewhere. Just this week I got an email from a company in California that manufactures fountains. >>

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INTERVIEW

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This is activity that is focusing interest in Bradford.” So does all this mean that Bradford is really going places, with everyone on board and cheering the plans on? Well no. Because all these supposedly positive improvements come with a qualification. Take the City of Film, for instance. It wasn’t as if it was competitive bid for the title. The council just thought of the idea, and then approached UNESCO about it. Naylor, however, insists that the city is a worthy winner, thanks to its cinematic past and its thriving present day digital industry. “It’s not my fault that nobody else thought of this,” Naylor points out. Having said that, it’s not actually possible to find out whether anyone else did think of it first. The labyrinthine rules that UNESCO has adopted mean that it cannot reveal what bids have been made from which cities around the world until and unless a bid is successful. But one thing is for certain: winning the bid doesn’t guarantee any extra funding for Bradford in its own right. It’s about kudos. Then there’s that development at New Victoria Place. It will involve the destruction of the much-loved old Odeon Cinema, which has lain derelict since it closed in 2000. A surprisingly sophisticated opposition group called the Bradford Odeon Rescue Group (BORG) is campaigning to save the building. The group wants to see the building retained, not necessarily as a cinema, but, according to group member Mark Nicholson, as a 3,000 seat theatrical venue. He claims surveyors’ reports show the building is commercially viable in its current state.

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They claim it attracted 13 live enquiries after it placed a classified ad in the property press a year ago to gauge commercial interest. Local businessman Nirmal Singh even approached Yorkshire Forward, who bought the building in 2003, and offered to buy it for £3m, though he subsequently withdrew his offer. Nicholson says this proves not enough effort has been put into retaining the building. “We haven’t got the resources to market it,” he says. “But Yorkshire Forward and the council have. They just want to demolish it, and you have to ask why taxpayers’ money was spent buying a building that is now being hurriedly passed on to a private developer. The wishes of local people are not being listened to.” That is perhaps an extreme reaction. David Green, the Labour opposition spokesman for regeneration on the council, says he certainly sees no irony in UNESCO’s first ever City of Film marking its inauguration by voting to demolish the only cinema building left in central Bradford. “The cinema, even when it was open, was cruddy,” he says. “And the back of the building is just a red brick box. But they could perhaps retain the towers at the front, as they are in

keeping with the nearby Alhambra.” He is more concerned about what is being proposed to go in the cinema’s place, and whether there really is a demand for it. “I do think there is a question of sustainability,” he says, “and whether we will be having this same argument again in 20 or 30 years.” Such doubts are voiced even more forcefully by David Scougall, a former director of the British Urban Regeneration Association who has been involved with regeneration in Bradford in the past. He says he has become so jaded with its progress that he has moved abroad to work on regeneration in the apparently more progressive former Eastern bloc. “People in Bradford want the Odeon and have voiced this time and again,” he says. “And what will replace it? A computergenerated building that will struggle to find occupiers for a very long time.” Even the City Park is not without its detractors. Its backers say they have received the support of more than 30,000 local residents, though opponents claim this ‘support’ was generated by way of a button on a machine in Bradford city centre which people were asked to press. It could, its detractors say, easily have been

You have to ask why taxpayers’ money was spent on a building now being passed on to a private developer

AUTUMN 09

misused. But as a plan the scheme has already been rejected once. Significantly, the Big Lottery Fund refused to give it any backing in 2007, preferring instead to fund seemingly more esoteric projects at either far end of the British Isles. And a campaign by Michael Ziff, chairman of Bradford’s urban regeneration company, to generate private sector funds didn’t really come to anything. Given such setbacks, is it wise to press on? Naylor says it definitely is. “This is a major construction project starting during the recession that is fully funded,” he says. “It will enable us to use the supply chain within the Bradford district. In terms of inward investment it is also a major statement for businesses wanting to relocate. How many city centres do you know that don’t have major accountancy and law firms? I’m aware one of the big accountancy firms - Baker Tilly - has been looking for accommodation in central Bradford. As a result of us not having anything to suit their timescales, they relocated in Shipley. We are getting enquiries, but we don’t have the capacity to deal with them.” That may be so, but the fact that as much as £10m of council money is going into this project at this time has raised eyebrows. Green, while not objecting to the mirror pool per se, wonders whether such money wouldn’t be better spent supporting local business. Scougall, too, is convinced the City Park is exactly the wrong thing. “They should be looking at things like a rapid transport system to Leeds,” he says, “or improving access to Little Germany.” But Andrew Mason, director of Newmason Properties, whose Victoria Mills development in the city seems to have won praise from everyone, including Scougall, disagrees. “What they are proposing with the City Park is bloody marvellous,” he says. “It shows the commitment of local politicians. We’ve had too many nay-sayers here.” Mason, who is also chairman of the rapidly growing Bradford Property Forum, a group of private and public sector parties with interests in Bradford, is proud of his home town and you can sense his frustration. “BCR have worked bloody hard,” he says. “In any other economic climate, Westfield would have been up and running 18 months ago.”

Bradford and film Were it not for the First World War, Bradford could have developed a film industry that might have rivalled Hollywood. Or so Adrian Naylor says. And he could have a point. In the very early 20th Century there was a thriving film industry in Manningham, with R J Appleton, the Riley Brothers and Cecil Wray all producing prototype film projectors that were bringing the new medium to the masses. The disruption of war put paid to that, so what is planned now? Naylor says the City of Film designation, which has been supported by Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and other cinematic Bradfordians, is mostly about branding. But there are signs of improvement. ITV’s recent dramatisation of Wuthering Heights was possibly the first film of the book to be filmed where it is set. “Bradford College is also now offering film courses that link to Bollywood,” says Naylor. “We have a strong offering now which we can then use to look at the skills agenda and developing skills.”

That is a reference to perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Bradford story in recent years – the stalled new shopping centre that the developer Westfield planned for the city centre. Everyone agreed Bradford’s retail offer needs to improve, and until the credit crunch the proposed centre would have included a major new Debenhams store. But for the moment the project remains a hole in the ground. Westfield is concentrating instead on a new shopping centre near the Olympic site in Stratford, east London.

INTERVIEW

“What has happened in Bradford is not that unusual,” says BCR chief executive Maud Marshall, “and anyone expecting Westfield to take its eye off the Stratford City development would be kidding themselves. That’s something we’re just going to have to sit out.” BCR is being wound up next year and reintegrated into the council itself (Marshall, a feisty Scot who has been very much its public face, is stepping down, and won’t say what she is doing next). Does that mean the plans generated for Bradford in the past few years have come to nought? Green certainly points out that the Will Alsop masterplan that first mooted the mirror pool was generated as long ago as 2003. “There is a danger that Bradford has missed the boat,” he says. Not surprisingly, Marshall disagrees. She says the masterplan helped to position the city, taking it up from a low point it had reached at the time of the Bradford riots. And both she and Naylor can point to a very encouraging recent success: Provident Financial’s relocation of its head office in McAleer & Rushe’s Southgate development. Provident Financial is a Bradford company through and through, but they both insist there was every possibility it might have relocated elsewhere. “They wanted to stay in Bradford because a workforce is here that has maybe had three generations of families in it,” says Marshall. “But they were keen to move, and it was important a site was found for them in a relatively short timescale, and that is what has happened.” So commercial occupiers may be happy. But it’s a remark that Marshall made to me some years ago that can perhaps best sum up why Bradford has been such a special case. She said then that Bradford people took more of an interest in what is happening to their city centre, and are more defensive about protecting it, because of mistakes that had been made in the past - primarily the decision in the 1960s to knock down the Swan Arcade, a Victorian gem much loved by local author J B Priestley, and replace it with a hideous construction that has already bitten the dust. When you see the mileage Leeds has made with the Victoria Quarter you see why Bradfordians might be angry. And the ongoing campaigns about the Odeon and elsewhere suggest they still might be. ■

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

INTERVIEW ENTREPRENEUR AUTUMN 09

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ENTREPRENEUR INTERVIEW

REACH FOR THE SKY

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Lessons learned during his time as a national bodybuilding champion have helped Chris Hopkins in his mission to improve the image of the roofing industry, says Peter Baber Once you have stood in front of 1,000 strangers wearing nothing but a skimpy Lycra brief you’re probably on for anything in business. Ask Chris Hopkins if you don’t believe me. He is currently managing director of the Brighouse-based roofing contractor, training provider and now franchise operation Ploughcroft. But in a former life he was a UK bodybuilding champion in a tournament run by the Natural Body Building Federation of the UK. Bodybuilding often promotes a snigger among people, and talk of how you only get to be a champion through the use of various illicit substances. So since you ask, the tournaments Hopkins took part in were totally steroid free. They had to be – inspectors can turn up at any time unannounced and demand a urine sample from any federation member. >>

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ENTREPRENEUR Cheats just wouldn’t get through. Hopkins can also illustrate just how many correlations can be made between being a successful bodybuilder and running a successful business. For a start, it’s not just about having massive muscles (or, to draw an analogy, making unsustainable profits). Every top bodybuilder knows that success at a competition is just as much about having great stamina (or great turnover, perhaps) and perfect poise (you could call that proper corporate governance). Then there is the huge preparation involved in making sure everything comes out well on the day – preparation that would be familiar to anyone who has ever had to present a business to investors or potential business partners, as Hopkins has been doing up and down the country in the past two years. “You probably only get 15 minutes to show what you are worth,” he says, “but behind that 15 minutes can be anything up to five years of preparation. I thought if you can apply that dedication to business it’s bound to be a recipe for success.” There are, of course, the presentational benefits too. Hopkins says he has no hesitation in telling audiences everywhere and people he meets the Ploughcroft story. It’s certainly a good one, about a boy who left school with only four O-levels just in time to see his father’s business go bust, and who only took up bodybuilding because he was a skinny teenager who was always being picked on. He’s since gone on to found a company that now runs nationally recognised training courses for more than 120 companies around the country, while both he and the company have won numerous awards. These include winning a training achievement award from the National Home Improvement Council, Hopkins being named Halifax Evening Courier Young Business Person of the Year in 2008, and in the same year the company winning the specialist category in the Best Places to Work in Construction awards run by trade magazine Contract Journal. Hopkins is most proud of this last award, because it was based on independently obtained comments from his own employees. It’s probably such an awareness that first got him thinking about wanting to start his own

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I rapidly got disgruntled ... I wanted to try and do things better

business too. He had been looking at the way his father and other roofing contractors ran their roofing and contracting businesses even before he left school, and he freely admits he wasn’t impressed. There seemed to be little in the way of formal training, other than what you learned on the job, he says, and as for recruiting, most of that seemed to be done by going down to the pub and offering a job to anyone you happened to share a pint with. As someone who was already training to be a bodybuilder and so needed to take care of his diet, drinking copious amounts of alcohol was the last thing young Hopkins was interested in – or is interested in, even now. “There seemed to be an old school pub network in how you were appointed,” he says. Even after his father’s business went under, and he spent a couple of years working for another builder, the story was much the same. “I am not saying there weren’t any good, skilled people,” he says. “There were. It was just that they had nothing to care about except the job. The state of the van didn’t bother them. The clothes they wore didn’t

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either. And needless to say safety and building standards weren’t always uppermost in their minds either. Then the company itself had no idea of brand, and when you got your wages they were still handed out as cash in little brown envelopes. Everyone drove around in anonymous white vans. I rapidly got disgruntled with the whole building industry. I really felt even then that I wanted to take on board what I had learned and try and do things better.” But before that came about there was nearly ten years spent working in various customerfacing operations. First for what was then still the Halifax Building Society, where he became a team leader in the share dealing operation, then at Direct Line Insurance, and finally at a contact centre for Yorkshire Water. Such experience certainly taught him a lot about selling, he says, and about dealing with customers, particularly in the case of Yorkshire Water where often irate customers would want to know exactly when their water supply might be reconnected. But he missed the face-to-face contact. “I came from a building

ENTREPRENEUR

background,” he says, “where we were used to facing the customer in person. There, everything was on the phone.” It wasn’t, however, until he started building an extension to the house where he was living in the late 1990s and people started asking him if he could do some work for them that he finally felt confident about returning to roofing. “The house was on a steep cobbled street leading up to a dry ski slope outside Halifax,” he says. “So people had to drive slowly as they went past. They would stop and say, ‘can I have your card?’ and I didn’t have one. I thought the time had come.” And so Ploughcroft, named after the village where this house was, was born. But just as he had promised himself, Hopkins was determined to set up and grow a building business in a different way from the norm. “I am known for not following what others are doing,” he says. Uniform was one thing. All Ploughcroft staff wear one, which makes much use of what has become a company colour: pillar box red. All Ploughcroft vans are painted this colour, not

the insipid white that is so common in the building industry. Hopkins says just this little detail has made a great difference, because people notice the red vans more. “It’s all about perception,” he says. “People think you are bigger than you actually are.” He himself even took to wearing a red shirt to business meetings wherever possible. “I was known as the man in red,” he says. Another way Ploughcroft differed from many of its competitors was the kind of work it went after in the early days. “All the other players were only after big contracts,” says Hopkins. “That’s all very well, and you tend to get a good profit from them, but how often do they come along, and how much time do you waste preparing bids for jobs that never come off? We tended instead to go for the little jobs that first the council and then other major organisations would give us. You could do 10, 20 or even 30 of these a week, which meant your cashflow was good, and the profit was still perfectly decent. Also you got to know possibly 30 different customers, as each job was different. If you did a good job for them they soon remembered the man in the red shirt and so your name would be spread around much more quickly.” It wasn’t until 2001, however, when the business was growing so quickly that Hopkins had felt that he needed to train up someone to act as his assistant director, that he really did something that many in the business, including his father, thought he was mad to do. It happened because the first person he trained up to be his assistant promptly left the company and set up on his own, and within a few months was serious competition. “I was determined to look on the positive side of such an experience,” he says. “I worked out that if he was doing so well then there must be something good about the way I had trained him and taught him everything I know about the business. So why don’t I set up a training centre as part of my business, and train not just my own staff but competitors too?” His father, who Hopkins had brought back into the business to help him along when he first started, said that such a scheme was impossible to pull off, and the two of them subsequently parted ways commercially (although Hopkins says his dad is now >>

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

ENTREPRENEUR proud of his achievements), but Hopkins knew that the idea was a good one, and was determined to succeed. Once again, like any good bodybuilder going about his preparation, he knew that such a training centre would only take off if it had all the proper accreditations. So NVQ accreditation was applied for and won in 2004, then all the necessary ISO certificates, as well as Investors in People. Such investment has clearly worked. “We are the only privately owned roofing contractor in the country offering courses for anyone in the industry,” says Hopkins. More than 120 different organisations have made use of the training facilities in Brighouse, and apart from the extra income this has brought, it has also paid dividends in the current downturn. “Local authorities have had to cut back on sub-contracting,” says Hopkins, “and that means some of their own staff have had to start taking the odd refresher course too, which we can provide.” The training also got the company noticed. In 2006 Hopkins was asked to join the national committee of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NFRC), the industry body. And there he spotted another opportunity: although his company was already fielding many calls from people wanting solar panels fitted to their roofs, there wasn’t any national training being offered to the roofing industry in how to install them. “I only go on committees to make a difference,” he says. “So I asked them why they didn’t have such a training programme. At first they hummed and hahed. They said there was no money in it, and the colleges said there was no call for it. But if there was a willing donkey out there, they might try it. I was more than willing to be that willing donkey.” More than willing, because Hopkins could see the logic in providing something he believes will very soon be in much stronger demand. “More and more people are looking to solar power,” he says. “Just look at what has happened in Germany and Denmark, whose governments have been pushing this more than ours in the past. Germany has 6 million sq ft of roof space taken up with solar panelling, yet in the UK we only have 200,000 sq ft of panels. Yet Germany has a similar climate to us.”

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

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I can’t see why we couldn’t go from being a £1.5m company with a £200,000 profit to something ten times that size And even if the UK Government has been slow off the mark, that could be about to change. The Department for Energy and Climate Change has announced new feed-in tariffs due to come into force in April 2010 which aim to create an income stream for people who produce energy from their own solar panels and want to feed any surplus they may have into the National Grid. Hopkins believes such people could be compensated by a ratio of three to one. “They could end up

being paid 36p per unit of electricity that would normally cost them 11p to take from the National Grid,” he says. So in preparation for this, Ploughcroft has developed a special training programme for roofers wanting to fit solar panels in conjunction with the NFRC. The company has already started providing training for some of the largest names in energy provision. And as a useful little quid pro quo, its training centre has also been used by some of the country’s major solar panel producers to test out their latest equipment, giving Ploughcroft a useful little headstart in finding out about new developments in technology. Hopkins has also been on a roadshow around the country, presenting the course and the training to over 100 businesses. It has, he says, been a useful exercise in finding out who is really interested in what could be a windfall for roofers. “With the kind of increase in demand I can see coming from these new feed-in tariffs there is no reason I can’t see why we couldn’t go from being a £1.5m company with a £200,000 profit to something perhaps ten times that size.” But in the meantime, the main business is not being forgotten. Ploughcroft’s enhanced visibility within the world of roofing has led Hopkins to feel confident enough to launch a franchise operation called Rooferman aimed at the smaller end of the market. For a fee of around £10,000, franchisees will be fully trained the Ploughcroft way to offer small jobs to customers with a set price list, and have all their admin and marketing done for them. After a relatively low-profile launch, six franchisees have so far been appointed, although Hopkins wants to grow this up to 100 within four years. “But I am vetting everyone,” he says. “I interview them, so that if, for example, they are in it just for pure profit, they won’t get appointed.” And finally after all these years he might even get back to bodybuilding. “I am 38 this year,” he says, “and I want to enter the senior competitions when I reach 40. So I have to start training soon.” If he does, he’s bound to find the same old rules about training, preparation and presentation apply. In business, as much as in bodybuilding.n

Bradford. The place for business Home to some of the largest headquarters in the North of England including Morrisons, Kelda, Denso Marston, Hallmark UK, Yorkshire Building Society and Provident Financial. Extensive regeneration plan is well underway with major projects already committed or on site. Fastest forecast rate of economic growth in West Yorkshire. The population of 497,000 is predicted to be the fastest growing outside of London. 60% rural, near the Yorkshire Dales â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a top UK residential hotspot. A university city with three further universities within 10 miles supplying 27,800 graduates every year in total. The best place for companies to base their headquarters in the UK.* * Source: Portman Travel HQ monitor survey 2007

To access advice on the availability of sites and premises, staff, training services, or for local sector knowledge within Bradford Call Invest in Bradford on: +44 (0)1274 437727 email: info@investinbradford.com visit: www.investinbradford.com

Part of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Department of Regeneration

INSIGHT

AUTUMN 09

IN THE MIX The Glasshoughton development outside Castleford is that rare thing – a mixed use development that actually is mixed use and really works. Peter Baber reports

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

If there was one phrase that has come into regular use in property circles in the last decade, it is mixed use. Some sceptics might even say it has now come into regular over-use. Essentially, all it means is that any one development offers more than just one type of property – not just offices, for example, but residential and perhaps retail as well. It is a laudable idea that was originally borne out of many urban planners’ desire to get away from creating ‘dead’ zones in city centres – streets of nothing but offices or shops which are completely deserted outside office hours. Encouraging more residential properties in

such areas, it was thought, would lessen the need for so much commuting, and possibly create something of a community in the city centre again. As is so often the case with laudable ideas, however, mixed use often proved harder to achieve in practice. The retail elements usually included at the bottom of the ‘city living’ apartment blocks that have sprung up all over large cities in the north in the past few years have proved notoriously difficult to let. People making the commitment to move into such flats soon found that the shops they needed for even the most basic living requirements

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INSIGHT

The area was in terrible decline ... but most of the surrounding houses have subsequently increased in value

Grand designs: Glasshoughton is an impressive example of how mixed use can work well

were all too busy moving to out-of-town locations. And office workers didn’t always like having a view of the next door flat’s bathroom. Then of course the credit crunch came, some of the developers promoting such developments went bust, and now the many ‘to let’ signs fluttering in the wind are a tell-tale sign of an idea that has gone a little awry. But there is within Yorkshire one development that is a success story of mixed use gone right. And it isn’t even in a city centre. Turn off Junction 32 on the M62 and you will almost immediately find yourself in the

Glasshoughton development, a 336-acre site that includes leisure in the form of the Xscape skiing centre and associated attractions, a designer retail outlet, new private housing built by the likes of Barratt and Yorkshire’s own Persimmon, industrial warehouses, and the odd office (Strategic Team Group, one of Yorkshire’s fastest growing companies, has its headquarters here). It’s not entirely dependent on motorway traffic either: Glasshoughton now has its own railway station, one of the very few new ones to have been opened in the past few years. And since February this year there is an educational element with the

opening of the skillsXchange, an extension of Wakefield College, offering vocational training to 16 to 19-year-olds from around the area. It’s certainly a change from when Stuart McLoughlin, managing director of Waystone, the company that developed the site, first visited it in 1994. Then, he says, the site was a “wilderness”. The colliery which had stood there had closed in 1986, and the coking works that was associated with it had gone in 1978. The site had lain derelict for the best part of a decade. “The whole area was in a terrible decline,” he says. Since then, the success of the development >>

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

INSIGHT

AUTUMN 09

has resulted in a remarkable turnaround. “Most of the surrounding houses have subsequently been part of Wakefield’s improvement programme, and have increased in value significantly,” says McLoughlin. It’s not a total transformation, of course. They’re not saying Glasshoughton is the new Harrogate. The site is still – and is likely to remain – strewn with electricity pylons. And even today, there are patches of land that, with their grassy tufts and barbed wire, resemble the patch of Teesside that Mrs Thatcher was famously photographed walking over in the 1980s; an image that has since gone on to symbolise industrial decay. But all such projects take time. Many regeneration projects have been going on for considerably longer than the 14 years Glasshoughton has been on the go, and with far less obvious results. “Most importantly, we created 3,500 jobs on this site,” says McLoughlin, “in everything from warehousing to fast food and retail.” So how did Glasshoughton succeed in a way which many other developments have yet to master? Waystone, set up by C P Holding’s Sir Bernard Schreier, won English Partnerships’ competition to take over and develop the site, which was initially owned by British Coal. McLoughlin says its vision was always to have mixed use from the start, and to offer a number of “catalysts” that would spark such development off. “We had a good balance concept right at the outset, and the site was large enough to take that on board,” he says. “We started with a

We thought it would catch on. We saw it as a regional centre and it has become a destination

Quick win: Getting Xscape in early encouraged others to come

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

starter package if you like, and then aimed to attract the others.” Chief among these was Xscape, the new indoor ski centre using real snow. McLoughlin thinks the company can take some credit for establishing the concept – now repeated in Milton Keynes and Braehead in Scotland. “It would be inaccurate to claim it was our idea,” he says, “but it was certainly our development of a design a guy in Telford had come up with for an indoor snow centre. He had a small trial area and we decided there was an opportunity here. There was a centre in Tamworth, but that uses shaved ice and had a much smaller set up. My daughter is an architect who works with me. We sold all the designs for the scheme, and an option for this site. Those designs were bought by Capital & Regional indirectly, but because we had three years’ remedial work here, they used the concept at Milton Keynes first. That actually meant that there were certain improvements we sought here – such as removing columns in the snow zone.” McLoughlin thinks the originality of the idea was what made Waystone win the bid to develop the site over other potentially much stronger contenders, even if the concept was initially a little tricky to sell. “It wasn’t easy to fund – we knew that would be difficult, because there was no prototype for it and no such leisure market,” he says. “But we are family of skiers, and we always took the view that it would make the attractiveness of skiing available to a wider audience. Artificial ski slopes are not the most attractive places to learn to ski. You can spray them with snow but it melts very quickly. On a slope like the one at Xscape you can teach young children to ski. So it makes it less expensive to get children to first establish whether they like skiing, whether they are any good at it, and the amount of schooling they might need when they get to the Alps. Holidays then become worthwhile. And recreational skiers will use it to get fit. But we always thought it was a new leisure activity which might catch on. We saw it as a regional centre, and it’s a destination.” The former derelict coking plant now buzzes every weekend and beyond. Visitor numbers at Xscape in 2008 were 3.8 million, up from 2.5 million when it opened in 2004. There’s been visitor growth too at the Designer Outlet

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INSIGHT

Networked: Glasshoughton’s proximity to the motorway has been a major selling point, as has the fact that it also has its own railway station shopping village next door. In 2004, the first year figures were recorded, it saw 2.4 million visitors in one year. By last year that had risen to 3 million. Not bad when you consider retail everywhere else has been suffering. McLoughlin says another key element in getting the whole development underway was the company’s open-mindedness about who should do the building. Although Waystone was a property development and construction company, it was perfectly happy to see Shepherd Construction get the £35m contract to build Xscape. “Such a contract was too big for us then,” he says. “We may have just done a £20m here with skillsXchange. But we were relatively small then. We didn’t make it a condition of the sale of the land that we do the construction, because we wanted to deliver that aspiration. One of the things we were keen to make clear to the people of Glasshougton was that there were things that were aspirational, and we couldn’t guarantee them because the property market is so fickle. But we did eventually deliver them, and that was one of the highlights.” Yet in the initial stages, even if there was clearly much land remediation work to be done, the site’s former use was not entirely >>

Further ventures What does a nimble property company faced with a downturn in the UK commercial property market do? Simple – it looks at other options. And one of these in Waystone’s case is the waste to energy market. The company is currently one of the backers of a plan to produce a waste to energy plant next to the Hatfield colliery – on the same site where Powerfuel is proposing to build a carbon storage facility (see last issue). McLoughlin says the company first started moving into this sector in 2007 when it noticed the property market was dipping. The regulation and resulting slow timescale involved in getting any such plant approved have since neutralised any benefit the company might have gained in spotting the downturn early. But McLoughlin thinks there potential is still huge. “There’s the pressures of European legislation, increasing landfill taxes and an increasing requirement on electricity companies to generate more renewable energy,” he says. “We are also promoting the concept of waste as a resource, and its total treatment – a full diversion from landfill. We are looking to process black bag waste in its entirety. It goes into a system of autoclaves. You effectively sanitise the whole lot, and finish up with a fibre that has a high degree of purity.” Such a process, he adds, also attracts a double allocation of ROCs – the bonuses electricity companies can gain for providing renewable energy. Waste to energy plants have come into criticism in the past for the vast amounts of waste they need to operate, which can often lead to lorries travelling vast distances to deliver waste to them. On occasion the whole process can also be self-generating: Denmark, for example, has gone so far down the waste to energy route that it is now importing waste to feeds its power plants. McLoughlin thinks some of this is unavoidable, and still believes the benefits are out there now. “There has to be some accommodation,” he says. “We can start thinking of waste as a resource, and a place like Doncaster can ultimately benefit because it has the opportunity to buy back green energy.”

BUSINESS QUARTER |AUTUMN 09

INSIGHT

AUTUMN 09

forgotten: McLoughlin, who was running Shand Group’s mining business when it was taken over by C P Holdings in 1987, was able to open a small opencast mine on the site to fund the remediation. Interest from other developers to build on the site didn’t take long to be generated. Bradford developer Marrtree put the first industrial units on the site, and McLoughlin says many office occupiers were clearly impressed with the site’s close access to the motorway. ”IT companies, in particular, want to be near the motorway,” he says. The success of both Xscape and the designer outlet also allowed the station to be built. “Railway was our idea right at the beginning,” says McLoughlin. “We said we should have a rail halt. Part of our Section 106 included a contribution towards that. But the ability to go ahead and actually build was triggered on the back of getting both Xscape and the factory outlet centre. That meant Metro could raise the money, and we built the station. Gradually more and more people are using it. It is important for something like the college. And it is an issue when it comes to putting a stadium there.” Which neatly brings us onto the future. Although McLoughlin says with some justification that Glasshoughton is already a “micro-economic centre”, there are still plans to expand over the next five years, and chief among these plans is another business park centred around providing a new stadium for the Castleford Tigers Rugby League club. “They have a current site which is redevelopable for housing,” he says. Such plans have to be put into perspective, of course, now we are in the thick of the credit crunch. “The office market is going to take considerable time before it recovers,” says McLoughlin. “We have a couple of small enquiries here, although whether they will come to something I don’t know. The shed market will also be quiet for some time – we actually have a surplus of 10,000 sq ft of industrial space in Yorkshire. And the economics of stadia in particular are not great at such a time. They have to have some sort of sustainable income stream.” McLoughlin is particularly keen not to see the Castleford Tigers seek support from the local

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

You get to the point where what people are objecting to is nothing to do with what you are seeking to achieve

framework process with both an extension to Glasshoughton and a development at Clowne in Derbyshire, next to another Waystone development at Barlborough, says the planning process in particular has become more long-winded. “The objectives of the process are fine,” he says. “It’s just the process that is the problem, and the time it is taking. You get to a point where what people are objecting to is actually nothing to do with what you are seeking to achieve in the planning process.” So would Glasshoughton as it was initially envisaged still have come through now? McLoughlin says it would. “It was such a desperate area.” In the meantime, however, the company has also exported its ideas abroad. Stribo, a former garrison town in the Czech Republic, has become the first site overseas to benefit from a Waystone mixed-use development. First Yorkshire, as they say, then the world. ■

Afterword from Alsop

authority, an avenue other clubs are currently exploring. “I don’t see it easy to justify public funds for a private rugby league club,” he says. “You have the competing interests of other clubs. I suspect the taxpayers will not want to support just one club.” Even once the current downturn is passed, McLoughlin feels the nature of the office market may well have changed. “The IT industry, for example, has heavily influenced office developments,” he says. “Whether they will continue to do so is open to question.” And then there is the whole process of getting permission to build. McLoughlin, who is currently going through the local development

The man who first came up with the mirror pool idea says he is not particularly bothered about who funds it. But Will Alsop says he is disappointed that in the six years since his masterplan was first produced, those in charge of Bradford regeneration opted to get several different developers to implement the plan, instead of going for one major one. This gave a chance for smaller more local developers, who, he claims, “are not very good”. “I worry that a once-in-a-100-year opportunity has been missed,” he said. “But I am glad that plans are going forward that will see the demolition of the horrid police station, and the inner ring road. A city the size of Bradford doesn’t need three ring roads, and knocking all that down will improve the appearance of the beautiful City Hall, which the mirror pool is also designed to do.”

AUTUMN 09

COMPANY PROFILE

The news may still be full of banks not being willing to lend, and of businesses going under as a result. But that’s not a view Liam Kane, West Yorkshire regional director for business and commercial banking at The Royal Bank of Scotland, has much time for

WE’RE VERY MUCH HERE

IAM, who has 20 years of experience at the bank behind him, says his bank certainly is still lending. The criteria RBS and NatWest use for deciding which businesses to back has certainly not changed either, he says. “It’s a simple rule of thumb,” he says. “If you lend to a business can they afford to repay?” Just in the past few months they have funded a string of deals. These have enabled, for example, the managing director of a Leeds-based pharmacy to lead a six-figure management buyout. Brio, the popular Italian restaurant chain, has been able to open a new outlet at Thorpe Park. Two experienced family lawyers have set up on their own as Lake Legal; and, continuing the legal theme, Switalski’s Solicitors has benefited from a £1m cash injection. This last deal was done under the Government backed Enterprise Finance Scheme, which Kane says his bank is really punching above its weight in. The scheme, which was designed to provide small and medium sized businesses with the necessary working capital or investment finance, was introduced in January this year and has so far seen RBS and NatWest lead the field in taking applications with over £241mworth of loans either lent or in the pipeline. Industry data shows that almost half of all EFG loans drawn down have been provided by RBS and NatWest. In fact, Kane doesn’t see much sign of gloom in the economy. “Earlier this month we had a customer forum in Huddersfield,” he says. “And I was really impressed by the reception – not just in terms of how much customers value their relationship with us, but also how well they were doing. Only one or two were struggling, and most had very good prospects for 2010.” His team of directors – Nigel Skelton in Bradford,

Left to Right: Robert Smith, Ian Foster, Peter Gray, Georgina Lancaster, Andrew Lowther, David Reed, Ian Barnet, Liam Kane and Nigel Skelton.

EARLIER THIS MONTH WE HAD A CUSTOMER FORUM IN HUDDERSFIELD, I WAS REALLY IMPRESSED BY THE RECEPTION – NOT JUST IN TERMS OF HOW MUCH CUSTOMERS VALUE THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH US, BUT ALSO HOW WELL THEY WERE DOING Andy Lowther in Huddersfield and Halifax, Georgina Lancaster in Wakefield, and David Reed and Ian Barnet in Leeds and Harrogate – are out there right now talking to customers, as are the relationship managers who report to them. By virtue of critical mass, RBS in West Yorkshire also has specialist teams covering the healthcare and property industries, and Ian Foster leads that. “Customers in those sectors can be assured that they are talking to someone who really understands the business,” says Kane. So the message is clear: the prospects are good, and our door is open. “RBS has had its difficulties,” he says, “but at a local business level

we are far removed from that,” he says. And they are ready to take your call.

For further information on what funding options are most suited to the requirements of your business please contact RBS on 0113 307 8466.

BIT OF A CHAT

AUTUMN 09

wish Mr Cockcroft a speedy recovery – and mention that, given his prowess as a property agent, it must have been a peculiarly stubborn and unresponsive tree.

>> Skipton-on-Sea

with Frank Tock >> A tale of York – and Halifax News comes across the airwaves of how the York Central scheme, allegedly one of Yorkshire’s biggest regeneration schemes that was said to be worth £1bn, has been “shelved”. I love the use of that word – making it sound as if all the aspirations of the developers, politicians and local people involved can just be rolled up and stashed away in some library ready to be dusted down in years to come. I also really wonder how they arrive at that figure of £1bn and what exactly it means anyway. The scheme has been touted about for years, with little being resolved about it. But it would not be the only such scheme in Yorkshire to have met such a fate in the current economic circumstances. Take the Piece Hall in Halifax, for example. Several years ago Yorkshire Forward mounted a major conference where, among other things, it invited architects to submit proposals for how to integrate the Piece Hall more effectively into Halifax town centre. Several years later, it was revealed over the summer that we are still only at the stage of submitting a Lottery bid. I suppose we should be thankful that something has happened.

>> Trees that don’t bend How disappointing to go to the IOD Director of the Year Awards in Leeds last month expecting to see DTZ director Adam Cockcroft present one of the prizes, only to be told that he would not be available owing to “an argument with a mountain bike and a tree”. One can only

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

Susannah Daley, one of this month’s interviewees, reveals novel networking – get your two-year-old daughter to do it for you. Some years ago, when said tot first went to nursery, she told her new friends that her mummy worked for a shipping company. “So does mine,” replied another little girl. “My mummy works on a ship,” said Daley junior, not to be outdone. “So does mine,” replied the other. It turns out the other child’s parents were then directors at Hebridean Island Cruises based in Skipton. Daley’s been friends with them since and now they have a yachting company, again in landlocked Skipton!

>> All shall have prizes Full marks to Michael Harrison, of the Mad Hatter Tea Company, first for launching a new venture in the current climate, but more importantly for reclaiming North Yorkshire as the true inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. Oxford has made hay in recent years in claiming that it and only it was the source for the book. In years gone by you could even go on Alice in Wonderland tours of the city. But every true Yorkshireman knows that Carroll, who spent his formative years in God’s own county, found inspiration for the hole Alice falls down at the start from the caves around Ripon, where no doubt he spied many a white rabbit too. Let’s reclaim the book for its rightful place once and for all.

>> Keeping schtumm I also have to commend Dean Hoyle for not revealing too much about what he intends to do with Huddersfield Town now that he is the majority owner. During his interview in this magazine, he has not even mentioned, for example, that some

fans are none too impressed with former owner Ken Davy’s (in my mind entirely justifiable) decision to retain ownership of the stadium where the Terriers are based. Hoyle has good reason to be wary, given recent history of businessmen taking over Yorkshire football clubs. Does anyone remember, for example, the famous press conference that Peter Ridsdale gave with Terry Venables towards the end of the latter’s tenure as coach? I have never seen before or since a better example of two people smiling for the cameras who quite clearly detested each other. Even Maggie Thatcher and Michael Heseltine did a better job job of pretending they liked each other.

Move: Gordons commercial property partner, Simon Leonard, (left) and David Nunn, of the BWMB

>> Back to the cloth News that the British Wool Marketing Board has taken over the former warehouse of Empire Direct in Bradford (see Commercial Property) is an illustration of the current topsy-turvy environment. Why, it was only a couple of years ago that Empire Direct was seen as the biggest retail success story in Yorkshire and Manohar Showan, its director, was one person just about every professional adviser in Yorkshire wanted to befriend. I was always slightly wary of this kind of adulation. The one time I made an order through Empire Direct they took four weeks to tell me that they didn’t actually have the item they had displayed on their website. Now the group has gone into administration. But who’d have thought its premises would be taken over by an organisation that promotes wool? The textile industry in Bradford? That’s so yesterday, darling.

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EVENTS

AUTUMN 09

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to: editor@bq-magazine.co.uk.

OCTOBER 15 OCTOBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm-7.30pm, Hotel du Vin, York. For details ring 01423 525622. 19 OCTOBER Welcome to Yorkshire White Rose Awards for tourism. The biggest event celebrating the achievement of the tourism industry inYorkshire. Royal Armouries, Leeds. For details ring 0113 322 3508. 20 OCTOBER Harrogate business lunch run by the Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce. Holiday Inn, Harrogate. For details ring 0113 247 0000. 21 OCTOBER The Business of Retail. A Question Time-style forum run by Marketing Leeds and featuring retail guru Mary Portas and Republic chief executive Tim Whitworth, among others. Corn Exchange, Leeds. For more details and to register your interest go to www.thebusinessof.co.uk. 26 OCTOBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking evening. York Theatre Royal, York. For details ring 0113 247 0000. 27 OCTOBER Bradford Chamber of Commerce Connections early evening networking event. Zouk Bar & Grill, Bradford. For details ring 01274 772777. 28 OCTOBER The IOD meets the Bank of England. A lunch talk by Tanveer Hussain, deputy agent in Yorkshire for the Bank of England. 12pm -2pm, 3, Albion Place, Leeds. For detaisl ring 0113 243 0152. 30 OCTOBER Bradford Chamber of Commerce ladies’ business lunch. Featruing Apprentice runner-up Claire Young. Dubrovnik Hotel, Bradford. For more details ring 01274 772777.

NOVEMBER 3-5 NOVEMBER Ice Cream Exhibition 2009 – the only UK trade show dedicated to the ice cream industry. Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate. For more details ring 01332 203333.

12 NOVEMBER Lean Healthcare Academy. An opportunity to share best practice with fellow healthcare professionals on introducing lean or just in time management practices within the NHS. Royal Armouries, Leeds. For details ring Jennifer Calvert Smith on 01943 605976 or email Jennifer. calvertsmith@leanhealthcareacademy.co.uk. 17 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking event. York Castle Museum, York. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 18 NOVEMBER Darren Gough dinner. A Celebrity Question of Sport night brought to you by the former England captain and Strictly Come Dancing winner. Royal Armouries, Leeds. For details ring Richard Blakey on 07768 558102 or email richard@bluecrocodile.co.uk. 18 NOVEMBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm-7.30pm, Yo Yo Restaurant, Bradford. For details ring 01423 525622. 19 NOVEMBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm-7.30pm, Hotel du Vin, York. For details ring 01423 525622. 20 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce ladies networking lunch. Alea, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 20 NOVEMBER Bradford Chamber of Commerce annual dinner. With guest speaker John Timpson, chief executive of Timpsons. For more details ring 01274 772777. 24 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking evening. Revolution Electric Press, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 25 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast. Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

DECEMBER 3 DECEMBER Teams and remote working – the third part of motivational series led by people development consultancy Primeast. Cardale Park, Harrogate. For details ring Rachel Sorton-Hall on 01423 531083.

4 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce business lunch. Best Western Monkbar Hotel, York. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

3 DECEMBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm7.30pm, Hotel du Vin, Harrogate. For details ring 01423 525622.

4 NOVEMBER FT Masterclass series at Leeds University Business School. An early evening talk given by Matt Stringer, head of international operations at Marks & Spencer. For more details ring 0113 343 6321.

3 DECEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast. Headingley Experience, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

5 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast. Headingley Experience, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

9 DECEMBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm-7.30pm. City Inn, Leeds. For details ring 01423 525622.

5 NOVEMBER The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. 5.30pm-7.30pm, Hotel du Vin, Harrogate. For details ring 01423 525622. 9-11 NOVEMBER 14th European Biosolids and Organic Resources Conference. Bringing together professionals from right across Europe who work in the biosolids, sewage sludge and biowaste industries. Royal Armouries, Leeds. For details ring 01924 257891. 10 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce business lunch. Beiderbecke’s Hotel, Scarborough. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 11 NOVEMBER Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Connections Count speed networking event. Cedar Court Hotel, Huddersfield. For more details ring 01484 483660. 12 NOVEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast. Piccolino, York. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

BUSINESS QUARTER | AUTUMN 09

4 DECEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce annual lunch. The Royal York Hotel, York. For more details ring 0113 247 0000.

9 DECEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast. Grange Hotel and Restaurant, York. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 10 DECEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce property forum. Eversheds, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. 11 DECEMBER Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Christmas networking lunch. Hilton Hotel, Leeds. For more details ring 0113 247 0000. Please check with the contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they know of them.

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WHAT CAR? WINNER GREEN CAR OF THE YEAR VOLVO S40 WITH STOP/START £250 A MONTH DISCOU

£17,320

VOLVO M

More to Life

NTED M

ILL PRI

RRP £1 7,995

Vehicle shown for illustration purposes only.

THE VOLVO S40 1.6D DRIVE FEATURING THE NEW START/STOP TECHNOLOGY THE VOLVO S40 DRIVE HAS SCOOPED THE TOP HONOUR AND BEEN NAMED GREEN CAR OF THE YEAR AT THE PRESTIGIOUS 2009 WHAT CAR? GREEN CAR AWARDS. WITH DYNAMIC DESIGN, HIGH QUALITY, FIRST CLASS SAFETY AND LOW CO2 EMISSIONS, THE VOLVO S40 DRIVE SALOON APPEALS TO CUSTOMERS WHO ARE ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS BUT STILL DEMAND A CAR THAT COMBINES THE PRACTICALITY OF A FOUR-DOOR SALOON WITH THE STYLE, COMFORT AND REFINEMENT AFFORDED BY A PREMIUM MARQUE. ARRANGE AN S40 DRIVE TEST DRIVE AT ANY OF THE 5 MILL VOLVO DEALERSHIPS THROUGHOUT THE NORTH EAST & YORKSHIRE.

VOLVO S40 DRIVe 1.6 DIESEL WITH START/STOP

Mill Volvo price on the road

Customer Part Exchange/Deposit

£17,320.00

£5,176.11

Balance To Finance

£12,143.89

60 Monthly Payments of

£249.96

Interest Charges

Total Charge for Credit

£2,853.71

£3,073.71

includes a £95.00** purchase fee and £125* facility fee

Total Amount Payable

APR

9.7%*

(includes documentation fees)

£20,393.71

*Offer based on a S40 1.6 DRIVe Start/Stop. Optional extras available at extra cost. Including FOC payment protection for the first 18 Months.

MILL GARAGES about Customer Service Mill Hexham Bridge End, Hexham NE46 4JH. Tel: 01434 605 303

Mill Sunderland Wessington Way, Sunderland SR5 3HR Tel: 0191 516 8778

Mill Newcastle Scotswood Road, Newcastle NE15 6BZ. Tel: 0191 274 8200

WITH 3 YEARS FREE SERVICING , 3 YEARS FREE ROAD FUND TAX, 1 YEARS FREE INSURANCE AND WITH UP TO 72.4 MPG , NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME TO CHOOSE VOLVO †

††

Mill Stockton Preston Farm Business Park, Stockton TS18 3SG. Tel: 01642 673 251

Mill Harrogate Grimbald Crag Road, St James Retail Park HG5 8PY. Tel: 01423 798 600

Mill @ Vroom Orion Business Park, North Shields NE29 7SN. Tel: 0191 259 2821

*FUEL CONSUMPTION FOR THE VOLVO S40 1.6 D DRIVe IN MPG (L/100KM): URBAN 57.7 (4.9) EXTRA URBAN 83.1 (3.4) COMBINED 72.4 (3.9 WITH 115 GM/KM TO 118GM/KM OF CO2 EMISSIONS Finance subject to status. Guarantees/Indemnities may be required. *Payable with your first monthly payment. **Payable with the GMFV if you wish to own the vehicle at the end of the agreement. Further charges may be made subject to the condition of the vehicle, if the vehicle is returned at the end of the finance agreement. *** Payable if you wish to return the vehicle at the end of the finance agreement and the agreed mileage has been exceeded. Volvo Car Finance SL7 1YQ.

www.millvolvo.co.uk www.driveavolvocompanycar.com

Authorised Volvo repairers at

BQ_103455_Oct_2009

www.maserati.co.uk

MASERATI QUATTROPORTE SPORT GT S POWER AND ELEGANCE MADE TO MEASURE

440 HORSEPOWER IN A PININFARINA SUIT As you would expect, the Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S combines the elegance of Pininfarina design with the performance of a thoroughbred 440 hp V8 engine to deliver an exceptional driving experience. However, you may be surprised to discover 95 years of craftsmanship fused with the finest quality materials that offer over 4 million interior trim combinations, right down to the colour of the stitching. This means that your Quattroporte can be as bespoke as a tailor-made suit. The Maserati Quattroporte range is priced from £77,335 on the road, including 3 year/unlimited mileage warranty. Car shown: Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S priced at £89,865 on the road with metallic paint at £540. Official fuel consumption for the Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S in mpg (litres/100km): urban 11.8 (24.0), extra urban 25.9 (10.9), combined 18.0 (15.7). CO2 emissions on combined cycle 365g/km.

JCT600 Brooklands Ring Road, Lower Wortley, Leeds, W. Yorkshire LS12 6AA Tel: 0844 844 7462 www.jct600.co.uk Calls will be recorded for training purposes

“Probably the best buyers of maserati in the world”