How Barr Ellison Law is celebrating 150 years in Cambridge in style

Barr Ellison Law is celebrating its 150th anniversary year in style this year.

The Cambridge law firm was headline sponsor of last week’s inaugural Cambridge Independent Business Awards and has partnered with Arthur Rank Hospice Charity to raise money via a series of challenges.

“For any business to survive that length of time is to be celebrated and it has been a real focus this year,” says Kelly Peck, who stepped up to the managing partner role at Barr Ellison in June.

“The firm is going from strength to strength and we have new people joining. But we are always looking for more people.”

The team is tackling a series of challenges as part of its anniversary celebrations.

“We are trying to get to one million steps collectively – we’re on about 800,000 so far,” says Kelly. “And we are doing a static bike ride, aiming to get to 150 miles.”

With roots tracing back to around the time the electric lightbulb was invented, Barr Ellison says it is proud to be still shining brightly today, with offices at Parker’s Piece and on Addenbrooke’s concourse.

Personal wealth is the largest of its services.

“The high profile team operates in a city with a significant mixture of high net worth individuals and professionals. More people than ever are needing to look after their estates, and indeed you don’t have to be a wealthy person to need that service,” notes Kelly.

The property team – comprising both commercial and residential property services – and the catastrophic injury team are the next biggest at the firm.

“Then we have some specialist niche teams, like family and litigation and our court of protection team, who deserve highlighting. They look after people’s affairs when they are not able to do so themselves. It’s not just legal work, but ethical and social, and I take my hat off to the work that our CoP team is understaking,” says Kelly.

Having joined Barr Ellison as a partner in 2021, Kelly continues to lead the commercial property team, alongside her managing partner duties.

Unsurprisingly, given the activity around Cambridge, it is a busy time.

“Small to medium-sized developers are very active,” she says.

“There is also quite a lot of buoyancy in the commercial landlord and tenant sector, significantly in the tech sector with demand for grade A space. That is coming through, but when it does, it gets snapped up quite quickly. On the planning side, there is also lots of activity.”

Planning and growth are always hot topics, of course, but rarely more so than now, with a focus around how Cambridge’s growth will be managed – and what scale of growth the new Labour government is expecting from the city as it pushes for economic success.

There are also noises coming out of Whitehall about planning reform to accelerate the building of new homes and, particularly in Cambridge, office and lab space – although, of course, this would not be the first government to promise to streamline the process.

“Developments are still taking a long time, from start to finish,” notes Kelly. “But we carry on driving it forward as best we can.

“There is a consultation out on the current planning framework, which will increase the number of houses that need to be developed.

“But while we can talk about the increase in the delivery of housing, the planning system is quite broken and under severe pressure.

“There are added pressures of CIL – community infrastructure levy – payments, and BNG – biodiversity net gain – payments. I’ve got six or seven of them on at the moment.”

The aim to ensure development does not come at the heavy cost of damaging biodiversity means this is a growing area of work for all those involved.

But how do we ensure biodiversity net gain arrangements are not just something that sounds good on paper?

“The obligations are contained in Section 106 agreements between the local planning authority and the landowner, where the BNG is being delivered,” explains Kelly.

“A covenant can also be imposed on the land for 30 years, and the council monitors it every year for the first five years and then every five years to make sure the site is delivering on BNG.

“But trying to get this into a congested planning system, and having separate 106 agreements for BNG, is proving difficult and time consuming.

“If a developer is lucky enough to be able to squeeze a 10 per cent gain into their development, they are in control of it and it can be dealt with by a planning condition. But if they haven’t and they have to negotiate it off-site, you have to bring in a separate landowner and their lawyers, so you have three sets of lawyers!

“I’m acting at the moment for an ecology provider, with the landowner and their team on one side and the developer and their team on the other, who require their BNG to be sorted out. You need a Section 106, management agreements and possibly an option to address the BNG.”

All of this, of course, adds additional pressure on our local planning authorities.

“They are stretched too,” says Kelly. “Historically, there has been a trend for private practice from local authorities. The number left behind means there is not enough resource. Perhaps graduate planners should be required to cut their teeth at a local authority to ease the lack of resource.”

The complexity of these arrangements could be overwhelming for smaller developers, but Barr Ellison’s expertise helps them navigate the process.

“We are an extension of their project managers, helping make sure they keep on track with negotiations for Section 106s. We are normally involved at the stage of their option agreements. And we make sure they give us their timetables so we can work with them and keep on top of it, and make sure applications are submitted on time. We can remind them of their timetable, as they are busy too. We see this guidance as part of the added value we offer.

“Some of our developers may have six or seven sites on at once, so we need to have our house in order to support our clients,” says Kelly.

Amid the discussion around Cambridge growth, how does Kelly assess the level of land supply?

“There is scope on larger sites in the city, like by Marshall and at Eddington, but otherwise people are trying to find pockets. Developers are having to be quite creative to identify sites and see what they can do on brownfield sites. Otherwise, they are looking further out on the fringes of Cambridge. Planning changes via the current consultation might make other sites that were previously off-grid more viable,” she suggests.

In addition to the environmental responsibilities, developers creating new workspaces are increasingly working towards mixed-use sites with a leisure offer or community elements alongside offices.

“I think they have to be hubs – places like The Grafton, Unity Campus and Science Parks. They need to be destinations, rather than just serving the traditional office work function,” observes Kelly.

“Especially for some of those sectors, the world has moved on a bit. Staff need some downtime and it is also about enticing people back to the workplace.

“I think that’s also a knock-on effect on the reduction in thriving high streets. They were destinations and now city centres are needing to be innovative. These hubs are learning from the demise of the high street and trying to create a sense of community.”

Talking to Kelly, her passion for her field of expertise is obvious, so it’s no surprise to hear that she will continue to head up the commercial property team alongside her new role.

“I love what I do, so that will remain, and I have a great team around me.

“On the managing partner side, I’m also very fortunate that I have a great team of directors, in terms of HR, IT, marketing and finance. They are the experts in their field so they can counsel me on what we need to be on top of. I am taking the approach of letting people do what they’re good at – they don’t need me telling them. Hopefully, they get a proactive and constructive response from me.”

Kelly was already a partner and equity partner before her move up, so taking on the managing partner role has been a natural evolution.

“I look at my role as managing partner as a warden, taking care of it for the next generation.

“We have to deal with difficult decisions constantly around building the business for the future and ensuing it remains sustainable, viable and a happy place to be, while growing the level of business.”

So what might Barr Ellison look like in another 150 years’ time?

“We’ll probably be a floating building overlooking Parker’s Piece,” laughs Kelly.

“We’ll definitely still be in Cambridge. I just hope we can continue to grow and be as strong as we are today.”