Mills & Reeve LLP

Agriculture and estates.

Amanda specialises in all aspects of agricultural property law, with an emphasis on work for institutional and corporate clients that hold agricultural land as an investment, and on rural property development. She has very wide experience of most aspects of agricultural and property law, including the acquisition, management and disposal of freehold and leasehold agricultural estates; agricultural tenancies; single-farm payment; agri-environmental schemes; and diversification of agricultural land (for example, through commercial activities such as business and research parks, residential development schemes and energy projects). Her recent work includes advising: a private investment company on the acquisition of a 1,200 acre estate in Norfolk for £11m and in relation to the acceptance of a surrender by one of its agricultural tenants of a tenancy of a substantial estate in Essex and advising on the ongoing management of both estates; a charity on the grant of a strategic land option over 300 acres of farmland to a national housebuilder (with a minimum land value of £30m), the restructuring of occupational leasehold interests and management arrangements at its research park and the potential redevelopment of parts of the park; a private client in relation to the grant of an option to a supermarket chain to construct an eco-friendly supermarket and associated food academy on allotment and agricultural land in Norfolk; and a leading international university in relation to the restructuring of agricultural tenancies on its agricultural estate in Shropshire.

Trained Slaughter and May, London; qualified 1998. Trainee solicitor, Slaughter and May 1996-98; solicitor 1998-2005; senior solicitor, Mills & Reeve 2005-06; associate 2006-10; partner 2010 to date.

Manshead Upper School, Caddington, Luton; Queens College Cambridge (1992-95 BA Hons law 2:1); College of Law, Guildford (1995-96 LPC, distinction).

Swimming, playing the piano.