Ward Hadaway has secured several new major clients for its social housing team.
The team at the Top 100 law firm, which has offices in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester, now represents Leeds Federated, Your Housing Group, North Star Housing, Mosscare St. Vincent’s and Broadacres Housing Association following tender wins.
Together, these five social housing providers manage tens of thousands of homes across the North and are committed to building and developing many more social homes each year.
The appointments mean that Ward Hadaway will advise the Housing Associations across a whole range of different legal services, including land, planning, property, employment and corporate matters. Each contract will be from two to four years with possible extensions.
Ward Hadaway’s Social Housing Group is headed up by John Murray and comprises specialists across the firm with particular expertise in social housing. This includes Property partners Helen O’Neill and Julia Thomson, Banking and Finance partner Julie Harrison, consultant Mitch Brown, charities and commercial partner Fiona Wharton, Employment partner Paul Scope, Planning partner Kamran Hyder and Employment consultant Joe Thornhill.
Established in 1993 and operating largely in North Yorkshire, Broadacres is a not-for-profit housing association based in Northallerton. It owns and manages more than 6,000 homes. It elected Ward Hadaway to contribute to its aim of delivering excellent local housing and support services across North Yorkshire.
Your Housing Group currently has more than 28,000 homes across the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands. The Group selected Ward Hadaway for its professionalism and understanding.
Mosscare St Vincent’s are a community-based landlord with around 8,500 properties across the North West. It was formed by the merger of Mosscare Housing and St. Vincent’s in 2017, during which Ward Hadaway provided due diligence support. It plans to build more than 1,200 new homes over the next seven years.
Leeds Federated is a housing association with around 4,000 properties across Leeds, Wakefield and North Yorkshire. Ward Hadaway will work with the provider as one of its panel firms across all areas of their business, including building new homes and tenancy management.
North East-based Housing Association, North Star, provides affordable housing and develops new homes across Tees Valley, North Yorkshire and County Durham.
Ward Hadaway has also been appointed to the West Yorkshire Legal Framework for three years.
The firm was selected as one of only a handful of firms to provide organisations with legal support in nine areas of law covering everything from childcare and community law through to employment and pensions law and public health.
Local authorities who can access the firm’s services via the framework are Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council and Wakefield Council. The City of York Council is also a participant within the framework.
Head of Social Housing, John Murray said: “Our success in all of these tenders further reinforces Ward Hadaway’s position as one of the leading practices in the social housing field and is credit to the unrivalled expertise and experience of our housing team.
“We are absolutely delighted to be appointed to these legal services panels. They are significant appointments for Ward Hadaway and we are looking forward to growing our relationship with all of them.
“This is hugely significant for the social housing team at Ward Hadaway and is recognition of the hard work we have been delivering in the social housing sector. The appointments will certainly further strengthen our credentials in the sector.”
