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New managing partner named at LCF Law
Yorkshire law firm, LCF Law’s managing partner Simon Stell, who has led the firm for almost 30 years, is to step down from the role with partner and disputes specialist, Ragan Montgomery, taking up the position this month.
Simon joined LCF Law in 1995, when it was known as Last Cawthra Feather before becoming LCF Law in 2014. Shortly afterwards, in 2016, he was named Yorkshire Lawyer of the Year at the Yorkshire Legal Awards, and during his tenure he has overseen LCF Law’s growth.
Simon will continue to work with Ragan to assist with the handover. He will continue with the firm, acting as a mentor and sounding board as well as supporting the wider team, to help achieve LCF Law’s ambitious goals and objectives moving forward.
In her new role, Ragan will be responsible for overseeing LCF Law’s operations and leading the firm’s client service, growth and development strategies.
Ragan has worked at LCF Law since 2003 and is currently operational head of the firm’s Dispute Resolution department. Ragan specialises in disputes concerning wills, trusts and inheritance, as well as property litigation and professional negligence claims. She’s also a qualified civil and commercial mediator.
Ragan said: “After joining the firm 21 years ago as an assistant solicitor, to be appointed managing partner is a huge honour and it’s a challenge that I’m really looking forward to as we strive to build on our enviable reputation in Yorkshire and beyond.
“I’m taking over the role at a time when LCF Law is in a very strong position. Simon has never let the firm stand still and has always laid the foundations for future growth. We have a highly experienced group of 22 partners whose continued aim is grow the firm serving our existing clients, winning new clients to seek our advice and support as well as attracting the best people to join our team.”
Simon added: “Over the many years that I have been with LCF Law, there have been lots of changes, but we have always had a firm eye on the future, planning and modelling our strategic development, so that we can achieve our ambitions and the career aspirations of our colleagues. Five years ago, we began to look at a succession strategy and set about planning the structure and recruitment for the 2020s and beyond.
“One thing we were certain about was that law would still be a people business and we’ve worked hard to build a great team. I’m proud to remain a part of it in my new role. I very much look forward to supporting Ragan and continuing to be a dedicated contributor to LCF Law’s ongoing success.
“Ragan is a vastly experienced and highly respected lawyer who is always forward-thinking and has a natural ability to quickly identify and solve problems, which makes her very popular with clients, her colleagues and everyone she deals with. There’s no doubt she’s the perfect person to lead LCF Law going forward.”
Call goes out for possible development sites across North Yorkshire
A call for possible development sites across North Yorkshire has gone out this week as part of preparation for the county’s new local plan.
Landowners, site promoters, developers and other interested parties are being given the chance to submit site suggestions to North Yorkshire Council. They will be considered as part of the local plan being drawn up to meet the future growth of the county.
Sites can be submitted for any use or special designation, including but not limited to housing, employment, commercial development, retail and leisure, renewable energy generation, and biodiversity or other environmental enhancement schemes.
The North Yorkshire Local Plan, which the council aims to adopt by 2028, will set out where development will take place across the county over the next 15 to 20 years. It will also include policies and strategies that planning applications will be considered against.
Sites put forward for consideration will be subject to a lengthy process that will take several years to complete and will include independent government examination of the plan and the proposed sites.
Director of community development, Nic Harne, said: “The call for sites represents a crucial early stage in our local plan preparations and we welcome submissions from across North Yorkshire.
“However, submitting a site for consideration does not necessarily mean it will be taken forward for development. This exercise is not the planning application process and at this early stage, it is often the case that more sites are submitted than are needed to meet the future needs of the area.”
Site ideas must be submitted online using the council’s planning portal and allows the user to plot the site boundary, submit site details, include supporting documentation, and add details of any work carried out to date on the site.
This level of information is important and will allow the planning team to consider the impact of a site in detail. The process will include seeking expert advice on the impact on local services such as schools and health provision, capacity of local sewerage and water services, impact on wildlife and biodiversity, and the capacity of local roads and junctions.
When the initial assessment of sites is complete, the council will invite comments on the sites as part of a public consultation.
Anyone wanting to put a site forward for consideration should aim to do so by the end of June.
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Firms offered free workshops to make their business better
Free workshops are being staged jointly by Invest East Yorkshire and Invest Hull over the coming weeks to help business owners get better results from the recruitment process, improve their job adverts, tackle difficult conversations with employees that are under performing and manage staff absence.
Taking place online and at a number of venues across East Yorkshire and Hull, the workshops have been developed to enable time-poor small business owners to maximise their efficiency and effectiveness when managing people, ensuring that they’re better positioned for growth and success and don’t leave themselves at risk because they’ve not got appropriate policies and procedures in place. The dates and venues are as follows: Managing Performance workshops- Wednesday 24 April: Online from 9.30am to 11.30am.
- Tuesday 21 May: At the Louis Pearlman Centre at 94 Goulton Street in Hull (HU3 4DL) from 1.30pm to 4.30pm.
- Thursday 4 July: Online from 10am to 12 noon.
- Wednesday 8 May: At Bridlington Business Centre from 9.30am to 12.30pm.
- Thursday 27 June: Online from 10am to 12 noon.
- Wednesday 17 July: At ERGO, Bridgehead Business Park, Meadow Road, Hessle (HU13 0GD) from 9.30am to 12.30pm.
- Thursday 16 May: Online from 9am to 11am.
- Thursday 13 June: At Sewell Group, Craven Park, Poorhouse Lane, Hull (HU9 5HE) from 9.30am to 12.30pm.
East Yorkshire firms get more then £400,000 in levelling up grants
Invest East Yorkshire has awarded more than £400,000 of Levelling Up grant funding to businesses from a broad range of sectors across East Yorkshire.
This grant funding milestone represents a major boost for the local economy and underlines the team’s commitment to supporting small to medium-sized enterprises in East Yorkshire. Grants of between £1,000 and £50,000 have been awarded to businesses to support a broad range of projects, from external consultancy expertise and marketing support to capital expenditure on machinery and carbon reduction technology. The Levelling Up funding comes from the Government but has been allocated by Invest East Yorkshire’s Business Support Services team, which is part of East Riding of Yorkshire Council. During the same 12-month period, the team handled more than 1,000 enquiries and provided support to 700 different businesses. In addition to allocating £400,000 in Levelling Up funding, a further 45 grants have been provided to businesses through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Rural Economy Productivity Fund since June 2023. Tim Watson, MD of Brough-based The Word Agency, one of the businesses to have benefited from a Levelling Up grant, said: “The support from the Business Support Services team has been invaluable. As a growing business, we spotted an opportunity to enhance our service to our customers but taking that step required significant financial investment that would not have been possible without the funding we have received. Thanks to the support we have received we have been able to invest in technology that has made the business more efficient and allowed us to develop new products and services we know are in demand. This funding has helped us move faster and ensure the business continues to grow.” Councillor Anne Handley, Leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council said: “The Business Support Services team offers a wide range of services that help support our local business community. These grants are having such a positive impact in supporting the growth of our economy. I would encourage any local business owners and entrepreneurs to make contact to discover what’s on offer.” The grants provided by Invest East Yorkshire are aimed at supporting growth and innovation among East Yorkshire’s businesses, which means that they can’t be used to pay for everyday operational expenses. However the scheme does cover capital expenditure, with grants of up to £10,000 available for fixed assets, £5,000 for movable assets and carbon reduction grants of up to £20,000 on offer to businesses looking to reduce their carbon footprint. To support larger-scale projects capable of delivering significant economic impacts, such as the creation of multiple jobs, the use of local supply chains or those that boost the visitor economy, grants of up to £50,000 are available.Business collaboration brings state-of-the-art connectivity to more than 40 Yorkshire schools
NYnet, which builds and manages its own full fibre network across North Yorkshire, has worked with specialist education technology company Vital York Limited and North Yorkshire Council’s NYES Digital team to improve broadband connectivity, introduce the latest firewall and filtering technology and provide ongoing technical support to Ebor Academy Trust, South Bank Multi Academy Trust and Pathfinder Multi Academy Trust.
Together, the three Yorkshire academy trusts manage over 40 schools, from rural village primaries to inner-city primary and secondary schools.
The collaboration, which is thought to be the first of its kind in the region, has seen NYnet, Vital and NYES Digital pool their experience of working with the education sector to develop a programme of digital improvement, resilience and technical support.
NYNet CEO Alastair Taylor said: “NYnet has built its reputation over a period of almost two decades with a remit to deliver robust full fibre broadband to the NHS, blue light services, schools and remote rural communities in North Yorkshire.
“The knowledge we have built up over that time was invaluable as we worked with our partners on this project to make sure every learning community within the three trusts has access to the same high performance digital connectivity.”
James Pawson from Vital said: “It has been highly rewarding to work as part of a larger tech team to bring together our knowledge and expertise and develop the best possible solution for the academies involved.”
Keren Wild from NYES Digital said: “This partnership has brought huge benefits for all the schools involved and will futureproof their digital communications for many years to come. The academies can now benefit from ongoing support from Vital and NYnet to keep their IT systems trouble free and ensure school staff are not spending time fixing IT issues.”
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Farm offers ‘Goodness Grants’ for local causes
St Helen’s Farm, the goat’s milk producer, is offering ‘Goodness Grants’, pledging to give away up to a total of £10,000 to support good causes.
The family-run business, based near York, has launched the CSR initiative as a way to give back to local communities.
The ‘Goodness Grants’ encourage not-for-profit organisations and registered charities across England, Scotland and Wales to apply for funds of up to £5,000 to support projects which are doing good in their local communities.
Open to projects focused around sport, schools, clubs, wellness or to tackle social issues, the grants are for local organisations which improve the health, places or skills for families in their communities.
The ‘Goodness Grants’ initiative follows St Helen’s Farm’s CSR work last year which saw it raise over £28,000 for UK charity, Hope for Justice – which works to end modern slavery across the UK. The goat’s milk producer also gifted iPads to a local primary school to aid in learning.
Bill Randles, Managing Director at St Helen’s Farm, said: “Giving back to charities and good causes has always been close to our hearts, here at St Helen’s Farm. This time, we wanted to go a step further to support communities not just locally to us, but nationwide.
“We like to think of these grants as an extra reward for those going above and beyond to support their local areas, and it also allows us to listen and learn more about the fantastic communities around us.”
The deadline for applications is 30th June 2024, and funding will be granted in July.
Sheffield company granted strategic nuclear status
Sheffield Forgemasters has been awarded a crucial strategic qualification, positioning the company to support development and delivery of the next generation of civil nuclear power plants.
The company’s nuclear qualification came after an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Section III Division I NCA 3300 (NCA 3800), NCA 4000 and NQA-1 Code survey and audit, recommended it for Material Organisation (MO), and welding (NPT) accreditations.
Sheffield Forgemasters’ status as the only company in the UK capable of manufacturing reactor vessel components for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), coupled with its ASME status, make it a crucial capability in delivery of this advanced power-generation technology.
Ian Nicholls, group technical director at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “We undertook the ASME audit in November and have now received confirmation that the audit recommendation has been approved by the committee. The accreditation is a huge development with heightened requirements and protocols embracing all our processes, employees and selected sub-suppliers.”
The qualification comes soon after the company announced a ground-breaking development in the acceleration of welding for large nuclear vessels, using Electron Beam Welding to reduce more than a year’s worth of manual welding to less than 24 hours.
As well as being the sole UK supplier of large, nuclear-grade forgings and castings, Sheffield Forgemasters’ MO and NPT status now makes it one of the only UK companies qualified for fabrication of the main components within a civil nuclear power plant.
Ian added: “The ASME accreditation, coupled with our development of Electron Beam Welding for large diameter, nuclear grade vessels, places Sheffield Forgemasters at the pinnacle of development for Small Modular Reactors and presents significant possibilities for the UK’s domestic nuclear new-build programme.”
The ASME code is the most comprehensive series of guidelines for civil nuclear manufacture in the world with an emphasis on doctrines that have parallels with the European Nuclear manufacturing code, RCC-M, and other submarine nuclear standards.
Sheffield Forgemasters first gained ASME accreditation as a Nuclear Materials Organisation in 1992 will now continue its work to advance manufacturing technologies for the next generation of SMR civil nuclear power plants.
Yorkshire and the Humber puts in stalwart performance as levels of business start-ups fall across most of the UK
One of the key indicators of a buoyant economy, the number of new businesses launching, once again fell across almost all regions and nations in March compared with the previous month, according to the latest research from the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body, R3. However, Yorkshire and the Humber saw one of the smallest month-on-month decreases.
The research, which is based on an analysis of data provided by CreditSafe, showed that the number of start-ups in Yorkshire and the Humber fell by just 4.7% between February and March 2024, with 5,132 start-ups launching last month. Although levels have decreased slightly in the region over the last quarter, the figures for March show that over 1,200 more businesses launched compared with December 2023.
In March 2024, only Northern Ireland saw a rise in start-ups since the previous month, with an increase of 19.4%. Scotland and Wales were the only other nations to perform more strongly than Yorkshire and the Humber, with falls of 1.1% and 4.2% respectively. In contrast, the greatest decreases were in the South East (-11.7%), Greater London (-11.6%) and the South West (-10.4%).
Looking at insolvency-related activity last month, Yorkshire and the Humber was one of five regions and nations to experience a fall since February. The region saw an 8% decrease in this type of activity (which includes liquidator and administrator appointments and creditors’ meetings) with 242 businesses here affected.
The most marked falls were in Greater London (-13.9%), the West Midlands (-9.6%) and the North East (-8.8%). In contrast, the largest increases were in the South West (up by 38.1%), Scotland (up by 31%) and East Anglia (up by 14.2%).
Eleanor Temple, chair of R3 in Yorkshire and a barrister at Kings Chambers in Leeds, said: “While the UK economic landscape looks far from rosy, it is certainly good news that Yorkshire and the Humber is holding its own, both in terms of levels start-ups and insolvency-related activity.
“Despite confirmation that the UK entered recession in the second half of 2023, there already appear to be some green shoots of recovery. Recent growth figures are encouraging, along with signs of a resurgence of the housing market and various consumer and business surveys suggesting that confidence is returning.
“Nevertheless, with GPD lower than before Covid and living standards continuing to fall, interest rates remain high and businesses continue to face a challenging economic environment. We urge business owners to keep a close eye on cash flow and seek advice from an insolvency expert at the first signs of financial difficulties.”
Sheffield PR agency names two new hires
The agency, named Best New UK PR Consultancy last year by the Chartered Institute for Public Relations, is adding new clients across a range of sectors.
New clients include not-for-profit membership organisation The Whitehall & Industry Group, renewables company Shawton Energy, national charities Teenage Helpline and Breast Cancer UK, business consultancy The Director’s Helpline and care home group Milewood.
Amy, who spent five years at B2B agency Scriba PR and has more than eight years’ experience, said: “I’m over the moon to be joining the Altitude team. Having spent five years delivering B2B PR and communications for clients in niche, often complex, sectors — from waste and recycling to technology and charity — I’m really looking forward to getting under the skin of the amazing brands Altitude works with and sharing their stories.”
University of Sheffield journalism graduate Ellie has been creating content for top motorsport sites such as The Checkered Flag since she was 16. Her role at Altitude will see her solely manage the marketing for F4 driver Rowan Campbell-Pilling as he climbs the rankings on his way to achieving his F1 dream.
She will attend track days and races, manage media interviews, liaise with Motorsport UK and engage with corporate clients and partners. British F4 races are broadcast live on ITV. She said: “This is a really exciting time for Altitude and me as this season will see Rowan gain so many new opportunities in motorsport. I’m really excited to get stuck in ahead of the F4 season.”
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