Shepherd, one of the largest independent firms of chartered surveyors in the UK, today marks the dawning of a new era with a strategy for growth made manifest in the relocation of a number of its offices throughout Scotland, including its long-established office in Edinburgh’s New Town.

Established over 125 years ago in Scotland, Shepherd delivers a valuation service throughout the UK from a network of 30 offices throughout Scotland and over 75 locations in England, Wales and the Channel Islands. Today its Edinburgh office moves into a prestigious new office at 12 Atholl Crescent, a short distance from its previous location at 3 Chester Street.

George Brewster, senior partner at Shepherd, said: “We’re looking ahead to the next decade and putting in place plans today for what Shepherd’s needs to look like in 2020. As a business, you either go forward or you go back; there’s no halfway house. You need to constantly evolve. Given the current economic climate, there are still some threats in the business that we need to manage through, but that’s no excuse for not having good housekeeping and making sure that we’re in good shape for the future.

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“Our Edinburgh office move is not just for the next few years but for the next generation of the firm’s development. As the various rules and regulations that ran the firm over previous decades have changed, there has been a requirement to review and deal with the end of an era and re-plan our infrastructure for a new era. We’ve been at Chester Street since 1998 and have enjoyed 13 good years of growth – but the office has become dated and requires refurbishment.”

Shepherd’s new townhouse building has 5500 sq ft of high quality space, compared to the 3500 sq ft available at Chester Street, and has a number of car parking spaces.

“It’s a higher profile townhouse building and offers better quality space for our 30 employees based there than our former office,” said Mr Brewster.

“Given that we’re developing various other aspects of our offering that will require more space, such as building surveying services and property management, a move to larger premises was deemed necessary. And as many of our administrative and accounting functions have come into Edinburgh, where our finance director is based, the time was right to relocate.”

Other office moves Shepherd is set to undertake throughout Scotland over the following weeks and months include: Glasgow; St Andrews; Perth and Kilmarnock.

Shepherd offers a multi disciplinary property service to include valuation, commercial agency, building surveying, rent reviews, development and investment consultancy, rating and property management.

(GK)