Civic Engineers, a civil and structural engineering practice, with established offices in Manchester and London, has expanded with the opening of a new studio in Leeds following its acquisition of Cooper Consulting Engineers also based in the city. The newly merged company has taken 1,500 sq ft of office space at the landmark, waterside development Tower Works, Globe Road in Leeds, a development marketed by Creative Space Management for developer, Carillion.
The combined technical expertise and resources of the whole Civic Engineers practice will be harnessed, whilst maintaining the relationships and work-stream of the existing Leeds-based team which will continue to be managed by Paul Cooper. Paul will be joined by Paul Morris, a Director at Civic Engineers currently based in Manchester who will play an important role in the integration of CCE with Civic Engineers both technically and culturally.
The acquisition is the result of an established mutual client relationship, through which it became apparent that there were strategic advantages to both Civic Engineers and CCE in combining the two practices. The expanded practice will benefit from a greater national market presence with strengthened design quality credentials, in addition to a technical team of eight people based in Leeds bringing staff numbers to 50 people across the three offices.
Key projects that Paul Cooper’s team is working on in the region include the Five Towns Park development in Castleford, Chocolate Works housing in York, and a new hotel on Whitehall Road in Leeds. Civic Engineers, also active in the region, is working on schemes including the Ironworks development in Holbeck; the Climate Innovation District, South Bank, Leeds, and the Chesterfield Waterside development. Clients the expanded practice works with in the region include GMI Group, Town Centre Securities, Lateral Property Group, Citu, Urbo, Barratt Homes and Igloo Regeneration.
Julian Broster, one of the founding directors at Civic Engineers, said:
“The practice will benefit greatly from the addition of the Leeds studio, which brings a very well established technical team and professional network, in addition to strong civil engineering design capability.
“We are very enthusiastic about the growth and development of both our team in Leeds, and the practice as a whole. Our objective is to be one of the most progressive and high performing independent engineering consultancies in the UK, consistently delivering innovative projects with a people-focused service.
“Whilst we appreciate that Brexit has brought with it an element of caution in making investment decisions, we are confident that the momentum that we have built up over the last few years along with the Leeds team’s pipeline in work provides us with a degree of commercial resilience.”
Paul Cooper, Founding Director of CCE said:
“This integration is fantastic news for CCE and gives us the confidence to continue to expand and effectively deliver on our existing commitments. The timing of this merger aligns with our increased pipeline of projects particularly the Five Towns, Castleford scheme. Our aspiration as the new Leeds office of Civic Engineers is to grow the practice to 15 people within the next 12 months.”
For further information, please contact Justine McGuinn of Just PR & Marketing on 07903 661228 or justine@justprm.co.uk
