Up For The Challenge!

Yorkshire Commercial Property Register
May 2009

Flying in the face of the recession, three top Leeds agents have launched WSB, a new practice that will offer the full range of surveying services. In fact business history shows that entrepreneurs who take a contra-cyclical stance and launch businesses in hard times are choosing the right moment.

As it happens, the commercial property market in Yorkshire appears to be past the worst. The three surveyors starting the business are Duncan Senior, previously of CB Richard Ellis, Robin Beagley of Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) and David Watson, also of LSH. Senior said: “We have been thinking about it for some time and Robin was the catalyst for us deciding that it was now or never. We are taking a long term view but have been encouraged by the improved sentiment with clients looking to expand their businesses.”

Senior notes that the improvement follows a dismal twelve months and companies have now decided to “get on with it.” The new firm will handle deals in an area that stretches west to Manchester, north to Newcastle and south to Nottingham. The practice is already pulling in business and is working on a distribution led mixed use scheme in Durham on a 250 acre site; in Leeds two office developments; Crusader House, a 3,252 sq.metres (35,000 sq.ft.) development by Wilton and Riverside Studios, together with two large sites elsewhere in the city at Kirkstall Road and Bridge Street.