Property Auctions team strengthened with senior Yorkshire hire

Residential valuations specialist Chris Jackson has joined property auctioneer Pugh, part of Eddisons as associate director and will be based in the firm’s Leeds office.

With a decade’s experience in the Yorkshire property auctions market, Chris will take on a lead role in growing the auction business in the Yorkshire region.

Pugh managing director Paul Thompson said: “We are really pleased to welcome Chris on board and his appointment is a great strategic hire for us in Yorkshire.

“We are seeing growing demand for auction services in Yorkshire as rising interest rates cool the market and increasing numbers of homebuyers and sellers look to auctions for a secure sale. Chris brings a wealth of experience as well as a great network of contacts across the region.”

The hire follows our acquisition of Sheffield auction Mark Jenkinson earlier this year. Last month Pugh and Mark Jenkinson combined their online monthly property listings, to create one of the north’s largest property auctions. Between them the two firms sold commercial, residential and land assets worth over £94m at auction in the last year.

Chris Jackson said: “This is an exciting time to be joining Pugh, which is a dominant force in the northern auctions market and has a well-earned reputation for customer service matched with strategic market insight and impressive geographic reach. I am looking forward to bringing my experience of the Yorkshire market to expand Pugh’s customer base in the region still further.”

This month’s Pugh and Mark Jenkinson auction currently features over 50 properties, with new lots added daily, and will be held on 19 July at www.pugh-auctions.com.

Property group Eddisons has made three promotions within its 15-strong transport planning and highways design team, based in Manchester.

Mike Coogan, who joined the team in 2012, has become a director, while Jack Cunningham has been promoted from senior highways technician to senior highways engineer. Recent graduate Genna Woods, who joined Eddisons in 2022, moves from trainee technician to graduate transport planner.

Eddisons transport planning and highway design team was founded in 2011 as Croft, and acquired by Eddisons in 2019.

Recent Eddisons projects include advising Co-op Funeralcare on a series of new flagship care centres across the UK, with charging points at each location to accommodate the firm’s growing electric vehicle fleet and help the Co-op Group achieve its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2040.

Eddisons is also transport consultant on a 67-home residential scheme at Darlington Street in Coppull, near Chorley, which received planning consent in June, as well as recently beginning advisory work on a new Manchester faith primary school, the Olive School, part of the Star Academies group.

The transport planning team is currently delivering the detailed design of the public highway works for Birmingham’s largest housing development, the 5,500-home Langley Sutton Coldfield scheme.

Partner Phil Wooliscroft, who heads the transport planning team, said: “Eddisons is committed to our team’s career development and to nurturing people and enabling them to fulfil their potential, which is also critical to the success of the firm. Congratulations to my inspiring colleagues, who all richly deserve these promotions.”

He added: “This latest round of promotions is an indication of the breadth and depth of expertise and service that we are able to offer our clients and we expect to be making further new hires over the coming months.”

For any transport planning and design queries, please get in touch with the team who will be happy to help you.

The Building and Project Consultancy team left our head office on Wednesday to put their defect analysis skills to the test in Breary Marsh, spotting and removing Himalayan balsam.

We all know the chaos caused by invasive species, and we’ve often been at the forefront on telling you how to deal with it This week, however, we’ve put our money where our mouth is, and been tackling some of the stuff ourselves!

Members of our Building and Project Consultancy team in Leeds have been volunteering with other voluntary and activism groups from Leeds City Council to identify and remove Himalayan balsam from public spaces.

The group, lead by partner Ian Harrington, descended on Breary Marsh Local Nature Reserve in North Leeds – adjacent to Golden Acre Park – to provide an expert eye and a helping hand as the good weather has really gone towards the growth of the Himalayan balsam in particular.

Himalayan balsam is an invasive species that thrives in areas such as Breary Marsh: a wet valley alder woodland, a floodplain habitat that, on top of containing significant flora and fauna, is home to the invasive species that jeopardises the Marsh’s hard-earned ecosystem.

Although providing nectar for bees and being undeniably pretty to look at, these plants are not native to the UK and threaten our native flora that are simply not as hardy as the balsam species. It is typical of Himalayan balsam to thrive in areas such as riverbanks and floodplains, which is partly to blame for its successful dispersal of seeds through aquatic transportation.

Our Building and Project Consultancy team cleared the balsam to allow other native plant species and trees, such as willow trees and birches, to develop in the area. These native plants provide a much better habitat for animals and insects to not only exist but reproduce and thrive. Stripping back the balsam, which is tall and thick when grown in small spaces, can also reduce flood risks within the area.

The team worked all day to combat the plant and managed to make a reasonable dent, but as citizens we must be vigilant to keep balsam at bay – it is listed on Schedule 9, and has been an offence to plant or propagate Himalayan Balsam since 1981

Thank you to the Friends of Breary Marsh, the Leeds Parks and Countryside Service, and all the other volunteers who made the day so worthwhile.

We are delighted to announce the relocation of our Leeds head office to Wellington Place. To accommodate our continued growth we’ve taken the 7,100 sq ft second floor of 10 Wellington Place, making the move alongside parent company, independent insolvency practitioner Begbies Traynor.

The two businesses employ in excess of 1,200 people nationally with around 100 staff alone working out of the Leeds office.

Eddisons managing partner Anthony Spencer said: “This is an exciting move to state-of-the-art offices for both Eddisons and Begbies Traynor and represents our commitment to Yorkshire, where Eddisons was first founded in 1851, and an investment in our people, as well as strengthening the relationship between the two firms.”

He added: “It’s a reflection of our change in priorities since Covid, and an emphasis on the wellbeing of our team, that we are actually taking less overall space than we had previously but it is more people-focused.

Julian Pitts, regional managing partner for Begbies Traynor in Yorkshire, said: “This is a great move for both firms and 10 Wellington Place will be an inspiring city centre environment both for our own staff and our clients.

Begbies Traynor and Eddisons are growing organisations and our new Leeds offices, located in this impressive new development, are an important milestone, supporting our strategic growth plans and enabling us to better serve our clients.”

The Huntingdon office of Eddisons has added to its commercial agency headcount with the appointment of a new assistant surveyor.

Joseph Bowman takes up the position following the completion of an RICS accredited post-graduate degree in Real Estate from Nottingham Trent University in 2022, and property sector work experience in Cambridge.

Joseph has always lived locally in the district and has joined Eddisons to support the work of senior professionals in the agency team not only in Huntingdon, but across the firm’s seven Eastern & East Midlands regional offices which now include Kettering & Northampton and also Lincoln after acquisition deals announced in the past 12 months.

In welcoming the office’s newest recruit, Stephen Power, Director, Eddisons Huntingdon, said, “Joseph fills a newly created position in the agency team and is one of a number of new appointments in the region this year in our planned programme of recruitment this year.”

Two of more interesting lots from our  June Industrial Collective Auction are two Bedford J-Type pick up trucks. Paul Cooper shares his thoughts:

The Bedford J-Type pick-up truck seemed a bit old fashioned from the very start. The first one actually rolled off the production line in 1958 but the model had the look of something from an earlier time.

It would never be a great success in a UK that was just about to enter the swinging sixties. The AA did buy some, as did Post Office Telephones – and so too did the famous Lancashire pie company Holland’s, indeed in those parts the Bedfords were known as ‘Holland’s pie vans’.

It was however a very different story so far as the export market was concerned. Buyers in New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and elsewhere were untroubled by the fact that that the Bedford’s style was not cutting edge. They liked its price, power, reliability, durability and ease of maintenance. Furthermore, using the vehicle in warm, dry climates, they would not be troubled by what would be the Bedford’s great weakness in damp old England – susceptibility to rust.

Fast-forward six decades and everything has changed. Classic vehicle enthusiasts, commercial companies and others looking for transportation that will attract attention, just love the style of the Bedford J. Unfortunately surviving British examples are quite rare but thankfully our friends in far-flung parts of the world have been able to help. Bedfords have survived in considerable numbers abroad and they are now being brought back.

Both of the Bedford pick-ups that are now gracing the Eddisons Saleroom Centre in Scunthorpe have been brought back home from abroad, albeit in the case of the oldest example not very far abroad – just Southern Ireland.

VZ 3797 was first registered in October 1958, so it is an early example, and it is in remarkably good condition, with no signs of rust or rot in the commonly susceptible places. Rather a surprise given that Irish weather could hardly be said to be so much different to UK weather. The explanation for the condition is that when its seemingly rather gentle working days were over the vehicle was stored for many years in a nice dry barn. A great find and a wonderful restoration project.

The second Bedford dates from 1965 and was brought home from South Africa about ten years ago. Since then it has been kept in a dry storage unit, so again the condition is unexpectedly good, with no signs of rust or rot that occurred in the susceptible places. The body of this vehicle has what are known as ‘eyebrow wings’, a feature that was introduced to give the bonnet a more stylish appearance.

So to the question of value: At auction in this condition they should make £5,000-£7,000. Fully restored and in concours condition we could be talking three or four times as much, perhaps even more.

The two Bedfords are to go under the hammer in the online June Industrial Collective Auction that is scheduled to end at 1pm on Tuesday 6th June. Viewing is 10am-4.00pm on Monday at the Eddisons Auction Centre on Dunlop Way in Scunthorpe.