York Guides

ERIC Bloodaxe would have probably found a pretty robust way of dealing with the men from the ministry.
Dig a spade's depth in York and you are disturbing earth once trodden by Eric and his Viking horde.
This is great for archaeologists and town planners with clipboards, but bad news if, like John Reeves, you want to build there.
York is peppered with hidden places of interest. Developers face delays while sites are excavated to ensure that the remains of Roman or Viking settlements aren't going to be destroyed.
It's not surprising, says Reeves, that many developers throw up their hands in despair and go elsewhere. Reeves is proud of York's heritage, but thinks locals must acknowledge that, in planning terms, it can be a curse.
He's chairman of a company that has a syndicated property portfolio worth more than £50m, and a stake in some of York's iconic buildings, like the 14th-century Lendal Tower.
But he thinks developers may start heading for places like Middlesbrough instead.
"York is a very strange city," he says. "It's beautiful which is precisely what causes problems. Central Government diktats state that all developments if possible should be on brownfield land. Somewhere like Middlesbrough has acres of brownfield land, and thousands of acres of factory spaces."
The number of undeveloped brownfield sites in York can be counted on one hand, says Reeves, and they will almost certainly cover archaeological remains.
"Everywhere we dig, certainly within 12 inches of the surface you will hit Viking remains, go down 18 inches to two feet and you are straight into Roman stuff."
Frustrations linked to the planning process are the major obstacles holding business back, he argues.
"The planning system is in turmoil,'' he says. "It's underfunded, it's understaffed. All local authorities are under financial constraints and it's just taking forever, and it stops things happening. Planning is what drives our economy. The simplest planning application takes three months. If it's contentious it takes six to nine months. If it's really contentious you could be waiting three years.
"It's nightmarish. It (the development) goes somewhere else, there are places in Europe and in other parts of the UK who are desperate to see things happening.
"If you want to open a business that employs up to 100 people, and you are not that bothered so long as it is in the North, and you place York, Leeds and Middlesbrough against each other, Middlesbrough will win hands down in terms of planning and delivery times, if not in terms of quality of life."
These sentiments seem bleak. But Reeves' gentle delivery makes it sound like the sort of temperate advice a country doctor would administer to a slightly sickly patient.
Reeves knows his clients, and they don't like nasty surprises. The Helmsley Group, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, started out by offering merchant banking and lending facilities.
It later branched out into loan and mortgage syndication. It's now probably best known for property development. The company's hands-on approach means that most of the developments are within an hour and half's travelling distance of York.
Apart from Lendal Tower, Helmsley has had a hand in providing a £2m facelift for Prudential House, which once rejoiced in the title of "York's second ugliest building". Other high-profile projects include the regeneration of Manhattan Gate in Middlehaven, Middlesbrough. It's also converted 5 Duncombe Place in York into luxury flats, and invested heavily in Merchant Exchange, an £8.5m mixed use development on the River Ouse.
Founded by the late Andrew Overington, Helmsley has often been compared to a gentlemen's club. Gentlemen, as we all know, don't fall prey to get-rich-quick schemes.
"Our clients are relatively high net worth individuals," says Reeves. "Our clients come along, and they say, 'There's £5m to spend Mr Reeves, sort it out, but I don't want all my eggs in one basket'. So we spread it around."
He was born on April 13, 1956 – Friday 13th – in Bishop Auckland but moved almost immediately to Germany with his army parents.
When the stint in Germany ended, Reeves' family returned to the North, and he was educated in Darlington, Newcastle and Sedbergh. His first job was as a concrete block tester with Taylor Woodrow in the less than exotic setting of the Broken Spa Sewage Works in Darlington. He went to work as a trainee surveyor with Sanderson Townend – now Sanderson Weatherall – and took chartered surveying exams by correspondence course.
After completing the course, he spent five years in London with Hiller Parker May and Rowden, before heading north as a director of Jackson Stopps' York office. He then opened Sanderson Townend's York office.
He joined Helmsley 10 years ago as a 50/50 partner with Overington, and on the latter's death three years ago took control of the company.
His business philosophy revolves around "trust, transparency and truthfulness".
Reeves says: "I'm sick, as are most of our staff, of seeing schemes that give projected returns and have all sorts of massive gearing implications, with borrowed money. We buy with cash, simple as that.
"Our clients are generally fairly conservative. They want good, steady, safe returns and know that if things go wrong they can wait until they go right. We are happy to say that we are not the cleverest people under the sun. We don't pretend to be. We don't pretend to come up with the fanciest, complicated, schemes."
Reeves believes the beauty of syndication is its simplicity. A group of people pool their resources to buy a property, and each gets a percentage of the income and a percentage of the capital growth. Individuals and small pension funds can invest in these properties for as little as £25,000.
Helmsley specialises in developing or sourcing properties, and offering them to its client base by way of syndication. The company manages the property throughout its syndicated life. Turnover in 2004 was £3.1m, with pre-tax profits of £1.14m. Similar figures are expected this year. Staff have been given tiny plastic pink pigs – representing returns that are so good that "it's like watching pigs fly" – and have been encouraged to have pictures taken with them in bizarre locations around the world.
Despite problems caused by the legacy of Bloodaxe and his like, York is still a property hotspot. Its recent accreditation as a Science City has kept it in the spotlight.
"People pick York over other places because of the quality of life," says Reeves. "Science City is great PR for York and will become very, very important. We have always had faith in the science park.
"But we should be careful we don't base our entire future and prosperity on the Science City, which is what is being pushed quite hard. Science City is a core element of York's marketing and expansion scheme, but we should be very careful not to put all our eggs in one basket. You can concentrate on the sexy image of the Science City. But you have still got accountants, solicitors, the rail industry, and these guys need to be encouraged to stay here and grow and find the right business environment."
He's particularly proud of the sensitive redevelopment of Lendal Tower, which dates from 1300 and was originally part of York's defences. In Tudor times, it housed a great chain, which could be dragged across the river to protect the city from attack, and also ensured that ships could not enter or leave York without paying taxes.
The courtyard has a weeping elm tree, said to have been brought to the site by Colonel Thornton as a seedling from the grave of Napoleon on St Helena.
"It's a lovely building, an icon,'' says Reeves, sounding like a parent cooing over a newborn baby.
Apartment living is here to stay, he argues, but we mustn't forget that it's not suitable for everyone.
"My main concern is what happens to family homes?" he says. "Where are the houses coming from for the husband and wife, or families with kids?"
Married to Karen for 20 years with two boys and a girl, Reeves has a passion for waterskiing and Led Zeppelin which he is unlikely to share with many clients.
The measured, doctorly tone, is the one his clients know best. But there's also real zest in his parting shot: "Property is in our blood and when you are keen and excited by the right deal, you are better at finding them. Long may this continue!"