Unsworth Sugden Group

Leicester residents were out in force on Saturday morning to witness the toppling of one of Belgrave’s most distinctive landmarks, at the hands of a former factory apprentice.

Hundreds looked on as 62-year-old Tom Keville pushed the button, bringing the 115-foot disused chimney crashing to the ground at Ross Walk, making way for a brand new development of 72 properties from Westleigh New Homes.

Mr Keville, who worked at the site 47 years ago, paid £1,700 to detonate the chimney – once part of the former British United Shoe Machinery (BUSM) works – after placing the winning bid in a charity auction for local good causes.

Alongside the residents, the local media were also keen to capture the action as the chimney toppled. You can read the Leicester Mercury’s coverage and see step by step images of the demolition HERE.

You can also see and hear the exciting moment Mr Keville brought the chimney down by following these links:

bbc-1-east-midlands-210112-1727

bbc-radio-leicester-210112-0801

The former BUSM site is undergoing development in four phases as part of the Abbey Meadows regeneration area project. The project comes as the result of a partnership between Westleigh, Leicester City Council, the Homes and Communities Agency and landowners Trafalgar Global Ltd, who are working together to regenerate the area.

As the dust settles on the site, the Whetstone-based housebuilder will begin work on 72 modern three-, four- and five-bedroom properties, with the first 14 expected to be ready this summer. For further information about Belgrave Riverside log on to www.westleighnewhomes.co.uk

The phrase ‘Charity Tuesday’ isn’t solely confined to Twitter today after work by the Unsworth Sugden PR team saw coverage in this morning’s Leicester Mercury for client Westleigh Developments. This comes after its commercial division welcomed the regional office of a leading national charity to its LE3 office park in Leicester Forest East.

Tuesdays on the social networking and micro blogging website appear to have been designated as the chosen day of the week for charities and good causes to raise awareness and tell the world both what they do and when they do it, using the hashtag #charitytuesday.

So it seems quite apt that we have received coverage on a Tuesday for our press release about Alzheimer’s Society relocating its office for Leicester City, Leicestershire and Rutland from Humberstone Gate in the city centre to new premises at the development, close to junction 21a of the M1, which provides it with more space and the opportunity for future growth.

We spoke to representatives from the charity, Westleigh and property agents Innes England to gauge their opinions on the move and the local commercial property market before also organising photography and liaising with the paper. The end result was this great piece in today’s Business supplement.

(from left to right) Matt Moore of Westleigh, Sally Grundy of Alzheimer’s Society and Chris Page from Innes England at LE3

One of the Chancellor’s announcements yesterday during the 2011 Budget was a new £250 million shared equity scheme, called First Buy, aimed at helping around 10,000 first time buyers to get onto the property ladder and purchase a new build home.

When the Leicester Mercury came looking for an immediate response to this particular part of George Osborne’s speech, we were able to supply a comment from client Westleigh Developments.

As part of his quote on Home Buy, Ian Jones,  Business Development Director at the regional property developer, urged caution saying “the devil will be in the detail and it will be interesting to see how these changes are implemented in the coming weeks.”

You can read the full article on page 9 of today’s Mercury or HERE if you haven’t a copy. This forms part of the paper’s comprehensive post-Budget coverage.

Will George help the commercial property market in tomorrow's Budget or won't he?

EDIT: Afternoon of Wednesday 23rd March - Reaction to the Budget:

In response to the question posed in the title of this blog - not an awful lot! At least not at first glance. There are a number of reforms earmarked for the planning regime which sound interesting, which on paper could make life for developers a little easier. But as with all these things, whilst they sound very nice, how long will it take these new rules to kick in? Hopefully not “a number of years”, which the Chancellor seemed to say about a number of his proposals today.

Keep watching for the blog for more ‘post-Budget’ comments from our clients.

Client Westleigh Developments Ltd has donated £1,000 to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust after it was selected by the winner of the property developer’s festive online game.

Rather than sending Christmas cards to its suppliers and customers, Westleigh once again chose the green option, in line with its GreenHouse environmental commitment, and made its season’s greetings via email. Recipients were then invited to log on to play “Christmas Demolition”, a simple game where participants win points and complete levels by demolishing targets.

The game, which attracted hundreds of entrants, saw top scorer Robert Lees at Ridge & Partners LLP select the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to receive the £1,000 prize.

Chris Beighton, Managing Director at Westleigh, comments, “An increasing number of companies now send electronic greetings cards as an alternative to regular Christmas cards, which often leads to mountains of waste material after the festive period. The decision to run the online competition again was an easy one following the success of our previous charity games and we feel the £1,000 donation to a worthy cause truly reflects the real meaning of Christmas.”

Client Westleigh Developments is offering business across the region the chance to win £1,000 for the charity of their choice by playing its festive, online game.

Rather than sending Christmas cards to its suppliers and customers, Whetstone-based property developer Westleigh has again chosen the green option, in line with its GreenHouse environmental commitment and made its season’s greetings via email. Recipients are then invited to log on to play “Christmas Demolition”, a simple game where participants win points and complete levels by demolishing targets.

The game is also available at www.westleigh.co.uk and runs until 10am on Wednesday 22^nd December 2010.

Westleigh's 'Christmas Demolition' game

Construction students from Leicester College have visited one of the biggest affordable homes schemes in the city to learn more about timber frame as part of their studies.

Thirteen trainee bricklayers and two lecturers from the college’s Freemens Park campus visited the £15m project on Ross Walk, in the Belgrave area of the city, where 119 new affordable homes are being built by client Westleigh Developments using timber frame construction methods.

The Leicester Mercury featured the visit in this weekend’s property section and obviously loved our photography so much they decided to use the same image not once, not twice but three times in the same supplement!

See for yourself by clicking on this PDF link: leicester-mercury-property-041210-ross-walk-student-site-visit

Westleigh senior site manager Jason Mann with three of the students from Leicester College who visited the Ross Walk scheme

Last week was Energy Saving Week and the PR team was on hand to ensure it didn’t waste an opportunity to gain some client coverage.

Westleigh Developments had recently announced the results of a company incentive scheme which rewards its most efficient company drivers with a prize. Its annual statistics showed a 12% reduction in the amount of fuel used by its employees in the past 12 months which equated to 8,000 litres of fuel.

Taking a typical Westleigh vehicle from its fleet, the PR team put on their thinking caps and calculated that this equated to 87,987 miles - enough fuel to drive around the world three times - and approximately 24 tonnes of CO2 saved.

This resulted in a press release - featured in last Friday’s Leicester Mercury - and photography of Craig Johnson, Environmental and Quality Manager at Westleigh.

Craig Johnson at client Westleigh Developments Ltd

The driving incentive is just one of a number of measures taken by Westleigh as part of its Greenhouse environmental policy, a commitment launched four years ago to becoming an environmentally responsible organisation, through both its administrative and onsite activities. For more information please visit www.westleigh.co.uk.

Yesterday saw Chancellor George Osborne unveil the results of his Comprehensive Spending Review and when the Leicester Mercury came looking for reaction from the local business community, the Unsworth Sugden PR team was ready and waiting.

The Mercury specifically approached us looking for a comment on cuts to the social housing budget, knowing that client Westleigh Developments builds affordable homes for housing associations across the region and beyond, amongst its other ventures.

We were able to source a quote from Ian Jones, Business Development at Westleigh, which is featured in today’s Mercury amongst the extensive coverage of the review and analysis of how it will affect local people, businesses and services.

Buy today’s paper and turn to page 6, where Westleigh’s quote appears as a case study of a big local business.

Former Leicester Tigers star Matt Hampson has officially opened the brand new head office of Leicester’s leading and longest standing disabilities services charity, Mosaic Shaping Disability Services.

The ex-rugby player, who is confined to a wheelchair after suffering a spinal injury in a training session in 2005, was invited, along with a host of local dignitaries and partners of Mosaic, to kick-off a week of celebrations for the new, bespoke 5,500 sq ft permanent home at the le3 business park off Ratby Lane built by the commercial division of our client, Westleigh Developments.

Ian Harrison of Mosaic and Matt Hampson (front) with Westleigh's Anthony Ashford and Mosaic's Barbara Howard (behind)