Alex bolsters LSH building consultancy team

Alex Manuel has joined LSH.

A building surveyor with wide experience of working in the commercial, residential, health care and education sectors, has joined the Northampton office of national commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH).

Alex Manuel has been appointed associate building surveyor, joining a 20 strong building consultancy team led by Dudley Cross.

Alex has around 20 years’ experience in property and construction. Throughout this time he has been involved in a wide range of professional and project work. Among his more individual roles, he has overseen the construction of one of the cleanest galvanising plants in the country and surveyed aircraft hangers at a number of RAF bases.

He also provided quality monitoring services on a garden village development in Suffolk, designed according to Hindu ethics promoted by The Beatles’ guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Before joining LSH, Alex worked for both provincial and multi-national surveying firms, building up a broad range of experience across sectors and client types.

He has extensive experience in providing a full range of building surveying services including project management and contract administration, design and specification, defect diagnosis, condition surveys, and pre-acquisition surveys/due diligence. He has also acted as an Expert Witness in a number of disputes.

He has specialised as a party wall surveyor and is a member of the Pyramus & Thisbe Club; he is chairman of the Cambridgeshire branch. He is experienced in advising and acting for building owners as well as adjoining owners regarding the Act and the rights of the owners under it. Alex has dealt with a wide range of party wall matters from simple single storey domestic extensions through to major sub-basement works in Chelsea and a range of commercial appointments.

In education, he has been involved in securing funding for academies through the CIF scheme (and ACMF prior to that), then delivering those projects on site over the past few years. These have included re-roofing programmes, replacement of complete heating systems, new lighting systems and fire safety works. He has undertaken other works for schools and universities including the design and delivery of classroom and pre-school extensions, planned maintenance programmes, and was also part of the team which undertook the original Property Data Surveys for the (then) EFA.

Welcoming Alex to LSH, Northampton head of office Dudley Cross said: “In Alex, we have appointed a building surveyor with very considerable experience in a range of key sectors. His specialist expertise in party wall matters will bolster our existing building consultancy team, which is going from strength to strength. I am delighted to welcome Alex to LSH and I look forward to working alongside him.”