Lantern Building Consultancy secures Newcastle office move

A growing building consultancy firm is on the move to a central Newcastle base to accommodate its growing team.

Lantern Building Consultancy has signed a five-year lease on offices at Melbourne Street’s Generator Studios after securing a number of new deals. The consultancy, launched four year ago, provides building surveying services and over the last twelve months, directors Martin Smith and Alex Carter have secured new projects with public sector organisations, property companies and commercial occupiers.

New instructions include its work with Northumberland County Council over housing stock across Northumberland, and it has also been retained by Entain Group to defend dilapidations claims on its behalf, for retail premises between Norwich and Berwick. The new work has led to the appointment of building surveyors Graham Hill and Dan Guite, as well as operations manager Szofia Szabo.

Close to the firm’s new base, Lantern has recently project managed the structural repair of the grade II listed Castlegate Building on behalf of City Church Newcastle and is currently completing surveys of around 200 properties across the North East for The Hospital of God. The firm is carrying out fit-out works ahead of moving in March. The new office will initially provide a base for five staff, who will relocate from its current base in Jesmond, and Lantern is actively looking to recruit more staff over the year.

Martin Smith, formerly a partner at Sanderson Weatherall prior to founding Lantern, said: “As a combined team, we offer a great deal of expertise and we are delighted to be working with many highly regarded clients across a broad range of projects. There is real optimism amongst our client base, with many of them working on bringing forward new projects which in turn will deliver significant investment within the region and beyond. As a consequence, we need to expand our team further this year and our new base at Generator Studios is the ideal platform to position us for further growth.”

Director Alex Carter added: “Generator Studios provides us with the ideal working environment to service our growing portfolio of projects and is a fantastic workplace for the team. We look forward to taking occupation in March and we are eager to expand the team in the coming months.”

Meanwhile Hexham based planning and development specialist Hedley Planning has opened an office in Newcastle city centre on the back of growth. The firm has opened its new Tyneside base in Maybrook House on Grainger Street, which will provide an additional base for business development activities as well as support for its growing volume of city centre work, which includes upcoming planning applications for student residential properties and aparthotel projects. Alex Franklin is leading the office and more roles are expected to be created.

Elsewhere in Newcastle, commercial law firm JLF announced it is moving from Mosley Street into Bank House this summer. The firm is taking a 10 desk space within Cubo’s workspace on the top floor, which will increase to 20 next year.

Jabad Jaigirdar, senior partner of JLF added: “The office move underlines our confidence in the North East as a location, and we will continue to grow in local, national and international markets from our headquarters in Newcastle.”