Horizon Management has been appointed by leaseholders to manage 347 apartments across five buildings in Sheffield and Birkenhead following successful Right to Manage claims.
The Sheffield-based block manager will take responsibility for three buildings at Millsands in the Riverside Exchange development: Cracknell, Redgrave and Pinsent, comprising 168 apartments.
It has also been appointed at Mill 1 and Mill 2 at East Float Quay on Birkenhead’s waterfront, which contain 179 apartments between them.
Management of the Birkenhead buildings begins on 10 August, followed by the Sheffield development on 12 August.
FULL STATUTORY PROCESS
At Millsands, Horizon established the RTM company, secured the required leaseholder participation and prepared and served the statutory notices.
No counter-notice was submitted by the incumbent parties and the claim was admitted.
The firm has subsequently handled the operational handover, including building insurance, contractor arrangements, resident communications, site staffing and TUPE arrangements for existing employees.
Horizon also supported residents through the RTM process at East Float Quay and has prepared the buildings’ management transition. It plans to appoint locally based contractors at both developments.
REFORMS WIDEN ACCESS
The appointments come as leaseholders face rising property management costs.
Hamptons’ 2025 Service Charge Index puts the average service charge in England and Wales at £2,405 a year, or £200.42 a month. Charges increased by 55.6% during the decade to 2025, compared with CPI inflation of 39.8%.
Right to Manage reforms introduced in March 2025 increased the permitted proportion of non-residential floorspace from 25% to 50%. Leaseholders are also no longer routinely responsible for the freeholder’s costs.
“Leaseholders want control.”
Chris Browne, founder of Horizon Management, says: “Leaseholders are increasingly unwilling to accept that decisions about their own homes are made somewhere else, and recent reforms have removed much of what previously stopped them acting.
“What they need is a managing agent who can take them through the statutory process and then actually run the building afterwards.
“At Millsands we did both. We formed the company, served the notices and secured the claim, and from 12 August we are managing 168 apartments on behalf of the people who pay the bills. That is a very different proposition to being appointed to replace another agent at an existing site.”
THE CLAIM IS ONLY THE START
Nathan Humphreys, operations director at Horizon Management, says: “A successful RTM claim is the start of the work, not the end of it. Whether day one feels like progress or chaos comes down to the detail – insurance in place, contracts retendered or novated, site staff transferred across on the right terms, and residents kept informed at every stage.
“We are also looking to use locally based contractors at both developments. Where we can, that spend stays with firms in Sheffield and on the Wirral rather than leaving the area entirely.”
