Nigel Hugill and Robin Butler, the high-flying former Chelsfield directors, are making a comeback with a new commercial-property business backed by GI Partners, the American private-equity group.

The pair are best known for promoting and directing six of the largest regeneration projects in London during the past 15 years — at Paddington Basin, Bankside, Elephant & Castle, White City, Stratford and Greenwich Peninsula — during their time at Elliott Bernerd’s Chelsfield.

Butler and Hugill’s new business, Urban & Civic, has splashed out £27.5m on a former second world war American airbase at Alconbury, west of Cambridge.

The site, which spans 1,100 acres, was declared surplus to requirements by the Ministry of Defence in 1995 and now has outline planning consent for 7m sq ft of distribution warehouses. The duo will look for other land deals to expand the business.

Urban & Civic will team Butler and Hugill with Mark Tagliaferri, managing director of GI Partners, who previously headed Aaim, a celebrity property fund backed by Sir Alex Ferguson.

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