Giles Clifford
Giles Clifford is a highly experienced partner with more than twenty years' experience in helping clients to understand and manage risks, protect their interests and achieve their goals in the delivery of complex infrastructure and real estate development projects.
Giles heads our transport practice, which supports a wide variety of clients, many for whom transport is a core function, and others for whom interaction with the transport sector is sporadic. This group provides a co-ordinated group of legal specialists who are familiar with and committed to the sector.
With a particular specialism in rail stations and other transport-related development he derives much satisfaction from involvement in projects that lie at the heart of the economic and social functions of the urban environment.
Giles is also a leading member of our public sector team. His work is often at the interface between public and private sector worlds, and between commercial bodies and infrastructure operators and providers. Those involved often have very contrasting goals and mindsets. His appreciation of this has been helped by two significant secondments to major public sector clients and the experience of an earlier career in industry. Giles has seen a wide variety of projects that deal with those challenges, including both negotiating and supporting the operation of a significant number of PFI and PPP projects across a range of different sectors.
Giles has spoken publicly on a variety of legal subjects, including renewables project delivery, legal issues around the 'greening' of buildings, and the use of the contract as a risk management tool in complex projects, and runs the training programmes for the sector groups of which he is a member.
Clients
Giles' clients include Greater London Authority, London Underground, TfL and Crossrail, Ministry of Defence, National Highways (formerly Highways England), Transport for Greater Manchester and Bombardier Transportation.
Experience
Giles is a market leading legal expert in rail and infrastructure development projects and on the complex engineering and property issues involved in building and protecting underground assets such as stations, tunnels and utilities equipment. He works closely with Transport for London, London Underground and the Greater London Authority, and regularly helps developers working across the table from Network Rail on realising schemes in the vicinity of the national rail network.
He has advised Transport for London and London Underground for over twenty years, acting on significant projects at more than twenty stations, amongst a variety of other work including bus facilities. He advised the London Borough of Barnet on the rail-related aspects of the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration, which involved construction of a new station on the Thameslink line; various station-related mixed-use development; and the relocation of various rail facilities.
He was a key specialist on the Gowling WLG team which acted for Telereal Trillium and Blackstone Property Partners on their successful bid for the £1.46 billion Network Rail commercial property portfolio.
His practice has also grown to include major central government instructions from the Ministry of Defence, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and National Highways (formerly Highways England).
Giles is actively engaged in thought leadership on transport and the built environment, including on the challenges of effective delivery of change to create sustainable cities, and leads our smart cities offer:
He also works closely with the London Transport Museum; in 2021 co-authoring its 'Rethinking Sustainable Cities' report, and contributing in 2022 to the report 'Making Green Work' on green industrial strategy.