Presidential Team

2023/2024 CAAV Presidential Team

Martin Hall (Senior Vice-President), Malcolm Gale (National President), Julie Liddle (Junior Vice-President)

Malcolm Gale MRICS FAAV FLAA

CAAV National President

Malcolm spent his early years in Derbyshire and worked on a dairy farm before starting at Bagshaws in 1982 as a clerk at Uttoxeter market. Working for a firm of agricultural Surveyors and Auctioneers opened his eyes to the wide variety of work that they carried out and persuaded him that it was something that he felt would interest him and provide a respected career.

Malcolm applied to be a student member of the RICS and subsequently obtained a place at the Royal Agricultural College where he studied from 1985 to 1988 obtaining his Diploma in Rural Estate Management. On leaving college he went to work for Hobbs and Chambers in Faringdon as he started towards completing his TPC. Malcolm moved to Wintertons at Lichfield in 1989 and passed his CAAV exams in 1990 followed by his RICS exams in 1991 as well as taking on all sheep auctioneering duties at Lichfield market.

With the advent of Bagshaws taking over Wintertons in 1995, Malcolm had returned to the firm where his journey had started and he subsequently became a Partner in 2005 working out of the Uttoxeter office. Malcolm has been President of the Staffordshire Agricultural Valuers Association as well as Chairman of the Cheshire and Derbyshire Livestock Auctioneers Association. He is an RICS registered valuer and is involved with valuation, compulsory purchase, agency, development agreements and property auctioneering.

Malcolm has been married to Linda for 32 years and they have one son, Stuart who studied at Leeds and Nottingham and is a practicing microbiologist.

In his spare time Malcolm is now occasionally seen on the golf course having decided that rugby is now easier to watch rather than play. He also enjoyed fourteen years singing in a band during which time he and Linda, aided by their friends, helped to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.

Martin Hall BSc(Hons) FRICS FAAV ACIArb FRAgS REV

CAAV Senior Vice-President

Martin was born and raised on a fell farm in the northern Lake District, educated at Cockermouth School and was in the very first REALM year at Harper Adams. Having his placement year with Davidson & Robertson in Edinburgh, he returned there on graduation.

Martin became a partner in Davidson & Robertson in 2000 and, on de-merging the rural part of the business in 2005, became its Managing Director, holding that role until 2021 and growing the business significantly. He is now the Senior Director. Martin’s work focuses on strategic development, dispute resolution, compulsory purchase and compensation and landlord/tenant negotiations.

Martin assisted SAAVA in joining with CAAV in 2010; SAAVA has gone from strength to strength since then. He was President of SAAVA for 2012-14, has been the Scottish Convener for the CAAV Examinations from their introduction in 2012 to 2021, sits on SAAVA’s Council and Executive and the CAAV Education and Examinations Committee. He is a member of the CAAV Panel of Arbitrators. Serving on the Future Skills Working Group, he was elected to the Executive Committee in 2021.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies, a recent past Honorary Vice President of the Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland and is a Recognised European Valuer (REV).

Martin has been married to Isla for 26 years and has three children. Kirsty, a graduate of San Francisco working in the environmental sciences field, Kate a graduate of Harper Adams and currently working in NZ, and Will is reading Finance at Dundee. Outwith work, Martin runs 5k’s, is a curler during the winter months, farms, climbs Munros and is a director of his local Community Development Trust.

Julie Liddle LLM, FRICS, FAAV, MCIArb

CAAV Junior Vice-President

Julie is a Director of PFK Rural Limited, in Penrith, Cumbria. She is a farmers daughter, raised in County Durham. Her key experience relates to Landlord and Tenant arrangements (rural and commercial) along with planning and development work to include Option Agreements for renewable energy, however her principle area of work in the past five years is dispute resolution – primarily as an Arbitrator or Independent Expert.

Julie started on her career later than most at Harper Adams University in 1998 first taking a placement at H&H in Carlisle. She returned to Carlisle in 2001 with a BSc (Hons) in Rural Enterprise & Land Management after final exams, passed her APC in 2002. During the early years Julie took a keen interest in the CAAV and soon began helping with the Northumbria & Cumbria Branch Junior Valuers. She took over chairmanship of this in 2002 and started her self-help group, which became very successful. She also became a Fellow in 2004 and Tutorial Organiser shortly thereafter.

In 2005 Julie became a director of H&H Land & Property and at the same time commenced a part-time law degree from Northumbria University in Advanced Commercial Property Law (LLM). In 2010 she undertook the Worshipful Company of Farmers Advanced Business Management Course and still attends the annual events the group from that year hold. In 2012 she took up the role of National Observer for the CAAV exams, chairing the position from 2015.

In 2015 she left H&H to set up Robson & Liddle (Rural) Limited with her business partner, based out of offices in Penrith. She took up a position on the Property Committee in 2017, becoming chairman in 2020. With a long interest in dispute resolution, Julie undertook a Diploma in Arbitration and was appointed to the Presidents panel of the RICS in 2017, she is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb) and is on two national panels as an arbitrator and also receives private appointments.

In 2020 she was co-opted onto CAAV Council as a Member and elected to the Executive in 2021.

With dispute resolution a matter for the Property Committee, Julie was involved in the appointment of arbitrators to the CAAV panel after government granted this statutory provision in 2020 and chaired one of the two interview panels for the process. She was appointed to sit on the Oversight Board which oversees the governance for all dispute resolution appointments in the same year.

Further involvement in dispute related matters and training came in 2022 by way of election onto the Rural Arbrix organising Committee.

Recently in December 2022 she and her business partner sold their firm to PFK Rural Limited where she is now a director.