The firm’s Real Estate team, in conjunction with the legal team at Transport for London, has been shortlisted in the Property Team of the Year category for its work advising The Greater London Authority on the £1 billion regeneration of London’s Albert Island. The deal created new commercial opportunities, increased local skilled employment and most importantly, for the first time in nearly 300 years, facilitated the building of a new commercial shipyard for boats working on the Thames.
Collaborating with TfL Legal the team, led by Real Estate partner Philip Beer and senior associate Drew Nesbitt, and Construction and Engineering partner, successfully navigated all the site issues to achieve the client’s objectives and set a new standard on how in-house and external legal teams can work together for their mutual client on major projects.
The firm’s Education team has been shortlisted for Commercial Team of the Year for its work establishing and advising Birmingham Children's Trust Limited, an entity tasked with radically improving the provision of children’s social care in Birmingham and thereby keeping the children of the largest local authority in Europe safe from harm.
The Trust was set up following a statutory intervention by the Secretary of State for Education as a result of a series of inadequate Ofsted ratings following its inspection(s) of Birmingham children’s services over a 10 year period.
The project, which was led by partner Matthew Ramus and managed day-to-day by senior associate Marcus Walters, required input from a broad range of specialist areas within the firm including Employment, Pensions, Tax, Corporate, Procurement and Real Estate and the firm advised the Trust on all legal aspects of the project.
This innovative project involved, among other things, the seamless transfer of around 2,000 staff from Birmingham City Council to the Trust whilst maintaining the ongoing provision of these invaluable frontline services in a highly regulated environment, and also establishing appropriate governance and performance regimes to enable the services to be improved and ensure that there is effective and appropriate accountability among the relevant stakeholders in respect of the performance of the services.
The team successfully fulfilled the client’s key objective that the Trust take over the provision of services within a timeframe of less than 12 months from appointment.
Led by the firm’s head of Rail, Brioney Thomas, Burges Salmon has also been shortlisted for its work advising Transport for Wales and Welsh Government on the £5 billion procurement of the Wales and Borders rail service and South Wales Metro. The project represented the largest public procurement ever undertaken by Welsh Ministers on a critical piece of national transport infrastructure, and was first-of-its-kind in the UK transport industry, containing numerous aspects that departed from industry norms to completely transform rail services in Wales. The Burges Salmon team advised TfW and Welsh Ministers on all legal aspects of the project including rail regulations, construction, real estate, pensions, employment, health and safety, and environment.
Winners of The Legal Week British Legal Awards will be announced at an awards dinner at Finsbury Square on Thursday 29 November 2018.
For more information, please visit The British Legal Awards website.