One of Yorkshire’s leading law firms has become entirely owned by its employees after the three shareholder directors agreed to sell the business to an Employee Ownership Trust. Ison Harrison, which has a network of sixteen offices throughout the region, was founded in 1978 as S.C Harrison & Co, merging a decade later with Ison Driver & Furness, to form Ison Harrison. Forty-three years later it now employs more than 230 staff across Yorkshire and offers the broadest suite of legal services in the region. The firm, which has an annual turnover of £16 million, has become a well-known regional practice representing around 20,000 clients each year the vast majority of whom live in the region.  Over the years the firm has represented clients in many high profile cases including several families at the inquest of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster. The growth of the firm over the past decade has been primarily driven through the development of an extensive branch network with residential property, wills and probate and family work in particular taking the lead.  The firm has always had a strong property work profile and now boasts one of the largest specialist teams in the country in acting for purchasers of New Build homes.  The last two years has seen the firm focus further on diversification by expanding its commercial offering substantially, to include Corporate, Litigation, Employment and Commercial Property for an ever-growing commercial client base. As the firm has grown in size, breadth and depth its name has become a mainstay of Yorkshire’s legal landscape. Directors of the firm opted against a traditional business sale or merger options, choosing an employee ownership trust instead with the workforce now owning 100% of the business. Under the new ownership model, the management structure will comprise of eight directors with five new directors welcomed to the existing Board including James Thompson, Gareth Naylor, Jenny Bland, Sarah Laughey and Richard Coulthard. Jonathan Wearing, who has been head of the firm for 15 years, remains Managing Director with Richard Timperley and Dominic Mackenzie, the other two shareholder Directors, remaining as Finance Director and Head of Private Client respectively. Jonathan Wearing said: “Richard, Dominic and I have enjoyed many successful years in growing the business and strengthening the firm’s footprint across Yorkshire but given our size we felt a new structure was necessary for us to continue to grow.  By becoming an employee owned business and extending the breadth and reach of the Board we feel that we are really well set up for whatever the future holds. The move offers stability, continued job security for all of our dedicated staff and a platform for further growth. Employees will have a greater influence over the future direction of the firm, will financially benefit from the ongoing success of the business and continue to deliver unrivalled client service in the multitude of private and commercial arenas in which we operate.  It will allow us to involve and reward everyone, attract talent in the region and demonstrate a genuine point of difference in a competitive market. In short, converting into an Employee Ownership Trust is great news for every single employee of the firm and everyone now has a stake in the business and can share in the success and profits that are made going forward.” Employee ownership is growing significantly in popularity, with many businesses opting for the model. The employee ownership sector witnessed unprecedented growth in 2020, which continued throughout 2021. Over 250 new employee-owned businesses were created in the past 18 months, with 72 of those in the first quarter of 2021 alone, making a total of 730 employee owned businesses in the UK (as of June 2021). Deb Oxley OBE, Chief Executive of the EOA, said: “We congratulate Ison Harrison on its transition to 100% employee ownership and its commitment to engaging its employees in its vision and sharing in its future success. At a time when many similar businesses are challenged by the succession issues presented by more traditional structures, this move roots jobs for the longer term in the communities the business serves.” Ison Harrison is the most accredited law firm in Yorkshire, with 13 Law Society accreditations including Conveyancing Quality, Clinical Negligence, Children Law, Family Law, Immigration & Asylum, and SRA Higher Courts Rights – civil and criminal.

The Bespoke Centre located in Bransholme has undergone a major refurbishment to create a dedicated managed workspace centre offering 20 units for small and starter businesses. Daren Hale, Leader of Hull City Council, ward councillors Anita Harrison and Jan Loft went to view the centre on Friday 17 December, along with several other local partners. The centre was originally a community resource centre, developed and operated by the voluntary sector. The building transferred to the council several years ago and, following a review, has been integrated into the council’s portfolio of Managed Workspace Centres. The repurposed Bespoke Centre joins the Louis Pearlman Centre and the Craven Park Training and Enterprise Centre as the council’s third Managed Workspace Centre, aimed at providing workspace and support to small and starter businesses. The building has been refurbished and additional units have been created in areas formerly used as council offices. The council has expended around £325k on the project, around £100k of this covered by grant support from the Hull and East Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (HEY LEP) as part of the government’s Getting Building Fund. The centre now offers 20 business units with a further area continuing to be occupied by BrightStart Day Nursery. Units are available in a range of sizes and are particularly suited to use as offices and professional services. The centre is staffed by the council’s Managed Workspace Team who provide on-site management, reception and meeting room services and business support and advice. Since the refurbishment works were completed, five new businesses have already moved in and several viewings are in progress with other potential occupiers. Daren Hale, Leader of Hull City Council, said: “The refurbishment of the Bespoke Centre was part of the Managed Workspace Programme, a package of investment to improve our managed workspace offer with support from our partners at the HEY LEP. “On our visit, I was delighted to see how this investment has made such a huge difference to a very important asset. The Bespoke Centre is the ideal facility for any small or starter business, with the added benefit of support from the council’s on-site business support team.” James Newman, Chair of the HEY LEP said: ‘’It was brilliant to see how the refurbishment of the building could make such a difference to the space available for local small entrepreneurial businesses to take their first step from living room to proper office accommodation. “As a LEP, our Growth Hub will continue to provide all the vital services to support these businesses and individuals and the Bespoke Centre will add to the office space, so much needed in this area of the city.’’ To find out more about the Bespoke Centre, visit the Hull City Council’s Managed Workspace Centres website. Click here to visit the HEY LEP website.

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and powerful diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer^® and pre|CISION™ platforms, provides an update on the performance of the AffiDX^® SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test (LFT) with the Omicron variant. The performance of all rapid antigen tests has come under recent scrutiny in light of the large number of mutations in the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the US Food and Drug Administration, as well as other sources, has indicated that antigen tests generally will detect the Omicron variant but may have reduced sensitivity.^[1] As reported on 15 December 2021, the AffiDX^® SARS-CoV-2 antigen test has been shown to detect the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in patient samples in a small clinical study. Whilst the AffiDX^® antigen test is effective at identifying high viral loads of Omicron, further laboratory analysis carried out by Avacta indicates that the sensitivity of the test is reduced at lower viral loads when compared with the sensitivity of the AffiDX^® test with previous SARS-CoV-2 variants. The AffiDX^® SARS CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test contains both a proprietary Affimer^® reagent and a commercially available antibody. Our data show that the Affimer^® reagent in the AffiDX^® test detects the Omicron variant with the same sensitivity as the Delta variant, and it is the performance of the antibody, with which the Affimer^® is paired in the test, that has been affected by the additional Omicron mutations. The Company has therefore independently taken the decision to pause sales of the AffiDX^® antigen test whilst it replaces the antibody in the product to ensure that its performance with the Omicron variant matches the high performance with previous mutations. Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group, said: “The continued high performance of the Affimer^® reagent in the AffiDX^® antigen test, despite the large number of mutations in the Omicron variant, is testament to the robustness of our platform technology. “As a responsible business, we set very high standards for ourselves and our products and have continually kept the performance of the AffiDX^® antigen test under review as new SARS-CoV-2 variants have arisen. Our determination to only provide high quality, high performance diagnostic tests has led us to the correct decision to pause all marketing of the AffiDX^® lateral flow antigen test. We have, of course, been unable to market the product in the UK since October 2021, as the product continues to await approval under the new CTDA regulatory process. “We believe COVID-19 testing remains a long-term commercial opportunity. We will therefore use the robustness of the Affimer^® platform, and what we have learned about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to generate the next generation antigen test that will be as resilient as possible to any future mutations. “The performance of other marketed SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow tests may well be adversely affected by the Omicron variant. This mutant is already the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in many countries and may soon be the dominant variant globally. We therefore believe it is essential that similar Omicron sensitivity studies be performed on all SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests and the results communicated to ensure the public can have confidence in the results these tests generate.”

Hull Maritime Foundation is looking to appoint five Trustees to join its board. The independent charity was set up 2018 to support the assets, sites and programmes of Hull Maritime Museum. The Foundation is searching for Trustees to strengthen the expertise in fundraising and marketing; charity law and management; events management and investments. Lord Haskins of Skidby, Chair of the Hull Maritime Foundation, said: “The Foundation’s focus for the future is helping to realise the ambitious vision for Hull’s maritime heritage as part of the Hull Maritime project and making good on the growth and promise that took root during UK City of Culture 2017. “Hull Maritime Foundation recognises that its Trustees are essential in delivering our vision and that’s why we are seeking to appoint a number of Trustees in order to achieve our endeavours.” The closing date for applications is 5pm, Monday 31 January 2022. For more information and recruitment pack, visit here.