One of Lincoln’s most well-known hotels, The White Hart has been acquired by Coleby-based chartered surveyor and businessman, Andrew Long. Andrew Long, principal director of Travel Sector Property Limited (TSPL), said: “We are delighted to have acquired this historic 50-bedroom hotel in its unique Uphill location. “We are proud to own this property, located within the imposing presence of the iconic Lincoln Cathedral and a few steps away from the city’s Norman Castle. We look forward to progressing our proposals for significant capital investment to upgrade and improve the existing facilities.” Taking ownership of the hotel and garages on the city’s popular Bailgate, Andrew has acquired The White Hart as a going concern, by way of an ‘off market’ transaction negotiated directly with Ambar Paul, principal of Contemporary Hotels. The current general manager Ian Robinson and all employees will be retained under the new ownership. Former owner, Ambar Paul, said: “We are pleased to have completed the transaction with Andrew and his companies, knowing he will successfully invest in the long term future of the hotel.” TSPL has also entered into a Management Agreement with Luxury Hotel Management Limited (LHM), owned by Nigel Chapman and colleagues who are well-established and highly experienced hoteliers. Andrew and his team also bought the Hotel Polurrian on The Lizard, Cornwall earlier in the year. The Polurrian is a 41-bedroom hotel and spa set in 12 acres of grounds with sea views, which also came with ownership of the Polurrian Cove beach. Andrew added: “The White Hart first opened more than 600 years ago as a Coaching Inn and has been one of Lincoln’s premier hotels since being substantially rebuilt and extended in the early 1800s. “We see the property as being an exceptional redevelopment opportunity. In particular, the garage and car parking areas at 2 Bailgate and off nearby St Paul’s Lane. “The Eastgate Suite (Orangery) has a well-established reputation as a popular wedding and function venue, which also includes the former King Richard Restaurant. We are committing substantial resources to create a prestigious and welcoming upgraded hotel. “Our intentions are to invest in an excellent restaurant, cocktail bar, function suite and leisure facilities, restoring the hotel to its rightful status as a premium leisure and business destination at the heart of Lincoln’s popular historic Uphill area.” Nigel Chapman, principal of LHM, said “We are pleased to be working with Andrew, having got to know him and his professional team very well. Lincoln is a fantastic city and the White Hart Hotel occupies a unique location with strong trading attributes for leisure and business use, along with significantly enhanced food and beverage facilities to serve the local area.” Andrew is a co-founder of the Extra Motorway Service Area Property Investment Group, where he continues to be CEO and an ongoing investor. He has some 40 years of property and operational experience in the hospitality and roadside sectors He has strong links with the city, having originally worked in Lincoln as a commercial property chartered surveyor & partner of Earl & Lawrence, together with Banks, Long & Co. Andrew retired from General Practice in May 2000 to focus on the expansion of Extra MSA Group, having initially trained in Lincoln with A Jackson & Son back in 1980.

Construction work is now well underway on the third phase of the Castleward development in Derby city centre, as part of the £100 million regeneration project. Regeneration specialist Compendium Living, Derby City Council, Lovell and Riverside marked the occasion with a breaking-ground ceremony on the brownfield site, located on John Street. Castleward is one of the city’s largest housing projects, and in total will provide around 800 new homes. The project, which sits between Derbion shopping centre and Derby Midland Station, will see 15 – 20 years of redevelopment, also providing green space and 35,000 square feet of commercial retail space. The third phase of Castleward will consist of 82 new homes, comprised of one and two-bedroom apartments and two-bedroom maisonettes. The range of homes have been designed to appeal to first-time buyers, downsizers, commuting professionals and growing families. Compendium Living will provide 55 properties for open market sale, and the remaining 27 will be affordable homes for housing association, Riverside. Work on phase three is expected to be completed in early 2024, and the show property is set to open its doors in 2023. Bruce Lister, Managing Director at Compendium Living, said: “We are excited to have officially commenced work on the third phase of Castleward, and to have celebrated this occasion with our partners. “This ground-breaking marks an incredible milestone for Compendium Living. We’re very proud to be continuing our investment in Derby and furthering the regeneration of the Castleward area.  Along with Derby City Council, Riverside and Lovell, we are transforming this brownfield site into a vibrant and sustainable new community. “We are very much looking forward to welcoming more residents into their brand-new homes.” Councillor Steve Hassall, cabinet member for regeneration, decarbonisation, strategic planning and transport for Derby City Council, said: “We’re thrilled to see work beginning on the next phase of the Castleward redevelopment. “The first two phases have already delivered an excellent range of homes and commercial space, as well as an attractive gateway to the city from the railway station, not to mention regeneration of a brown field site. Now we are looking forward to seeing these new homes taking shape and adding to this exciting project over the coming months. “We’re keen to attract new residents to our city, as well as provide options for locals who may consider city centre living. Having brand new state of the art homes in the heart of Derby will help that come to fruition.”

A pharmacy chain is building an ultra-modern headquarters, which will process millions of prescriptions per year for patients. Called Project Horizon, the multi-million pound venture in Derbyshire signals a new chapter for Chesterfield-based Peak Pharmacy. Construction work has started on a new Pharmacy Service Centre at Markham Vale, near junction 29A of the M1, to handle prescriptions and despatch medicines for the firm’s 150 community pharmacies across England. Prescriptions will be assembled for individual patients, then either delivered to local pharmacies for collection the next day, or direct to patients’ homes. The facility will use state-of-the-art robots and automated systems to support staff handling over 400,000 medicines and other prescribed items every month – that’s 20,000 a day, more than 40 every minute. Peak Pharmacy’s move is in response to caps in Government funding, which mean that pharmacy businesses are having to be more efficient in how they handle prescriptions. Centralising the process will also free up local pharmacists and Peak Pharmacy staff to provide other services for patients, such as vaccinations, blood pressure checks and healthy living advice. Managing Director Joe Cattee, whose parents Peter and Jane founded Peak Pharmacy in 1981, said: “These are ambitious plans for our company, staff and customers – in the face of a rapidly changing pharmacy landscape. “This will be transformational for us. We’re investing now to future-proof our business, so that we can continue to provide great local customer service which means so much to us.” The new hub is due to open in April next year. It will house up to 100 staff, with the potential to grow into a 24-hour operation in future. Peak Pharmacy is planning to be in a position to offer a centralised dispensing service to other independent pharmacies which don’t have the resources to develop their own centralised service, should the legislation allowing this change in the near future. Mr Cattee added: “We’re inviting other pharmacies to contact us now, so we can show them how our hub can benefit them too.” The company is investing more than £20m on Project Horizon, a significant proportion of which will be spent on automation technology. Around 40% of all prescriptions can be processed in this way. The project will replace five smaller existing Peak Pharmacy sites in Derbyshire. The new hub, on the site of the former Coalite coking plant in Bolsover, will: cover 113,000 square feet, have a continued focus on sustainability, with energy efficiency measures, electric charge points for colleague and business vehicles, major tree-planting and a bat box, and provide a canteen and leisure facilities.

Glenvale Park LLP – the developers behind the new community on the northern edge of Wellingborough – has welcomed housing provider Stonewater to the landmark development. Glenvale Park is a sustainable new neighbourhood in Wellingborough, bringing 3,000 brand new homes, amenities and green spaces to the northern fringe of the town. Stonewater is the eighth developer to join the community, with construction beginning on this latest parcel of homes in July 2022. Other developers on site include Barratt Homes, Taylor Wimpey, Keepmoat Homes, Persimmon Homes, ilke Homes and Lagan Homes. Care provider LNT has also recently completed its development at Glenvale Park. Stonewater plans to deliver a total of 148 affordable homes to Glenvale Park comprising a mix of flats and houses for affordable rent, social rent, shared ownership and Rent to Buy. The opportunity for Stonewater to acquire the site from Glenvale Park LLP was facilitated by affordable housing developer V10 Homes which put together a packaged deal for the land purchase and construction of the homes. To support its environmental commitments, the completed houses on the development will be powered entirely by air-source heat pumps and Stonewater will also be providing electric vehicle (EV) charging points. Chris Montague, director of development (East and North) at Stonewater, said: “From affordable and social rented homes to options that can support aspiring homeowners to get their foot on the property ladder, we’re proud to be joining this community and delivering these much-needed affordable homes to Wellingborough. “The variation of housing we’ll be providing at Glenvale Park will bring together different generations in a way that will help keep the existing community strong – whilst tackling local housing need.” Mark Best, director of Midtown Capital Ltd, managing partner of Glenvale Park LLP, said: “Through our public engagement, we know how important affordability is for the local community. We’re therefore delighted to welcome Stonewater to Glenvale Park, bringing affordable homes of an excellent standard to our community, while also meeting a local need. “We’re committed to ensuring we create an inclusive, exciting and accessible place for Wellingborough, delivering excellent homes across a range of tenures in addition to an array of green open spaces and high-quality amenities.” Karl Timberlake, land and operations director for V10 Homes, said: “We’re proud to have worked in partnership with the superb teams at Stonewater and Glenvale Park LLP to create these additional affordable homes within the wider development. “The fact that this parcel will be 100% affordable aligns perfectly with one of our key sustainability pledges – to improve the social value of our developments. These homes will help change people’s lives and we are delighted to have played a part in creating them.”

Nottingham-based pre-clinical contract research organisation (CRO), Platelet Services has signed a new lease to double its lab space at BioCity Nottingham, reflecting the year-on-year doubling of demand for the company’s core platelet function testing offering.

Platelet Services offers an array of standard and customised platelet testing assays to determine the effect of compounds on platelet function. Working with both small drug discovery companies and large pharmaceutical corporations, Platelet Services offers comprehensive support in drug discovery and development where platelet testing is required.

The additional space will allow the company’s project delivery and assay development services to proceed in parallel and will provide its team with more flexibility in delivering its core offering, with an anticipated shorter cycle time from agreeing a package of work with a client to the delivery of results.

Dr Natalia Dovlatova, CEO of Platelet Services, said: “With demand for our core platelet function testing offering rising significantly, this expansion of our lab space supports our continued growth strategy to broaden the range of test systems that Platelet Services is able to offer.

“Following the appointment of Paul Cato as senior research scientist earlier this year, we have ambitious plans to continue to expand our team with a focus on assay development. This is a really exciting time for Platelet Services, and we look forward to using the new space to strengthen our service offering and capabilities for the benefit of clients and further accelerate our growth.”