For Information
Garston Site Re-development - Update
The freehold to BRE Garston site is owned by Building Research Establishment Ltd. It extends over about 70 acres and includes gross floor space of about 500,000 sq ft. With few exceptions the buildings are of no more than average condition and, many having originally been procured by government through the then PSA are of very modest quality. The entire site lies within the Green Belt and has the informal status of a ‘Major Developed Site within the Green Belt’, this brings with it a few opportunities and many constraints. Whilst there is a
draft ‘Planning Brief’ dating back a decade or more we have struggled to get clear guidance from the planning authority as to future development opportunities. Indeed, we made early attempts to establish the suitability of parts of the site for housing only to be rebuffed by skulduggery, politics and more.
The BRE pension scheme has a charge over the site of circa £10m, escalating at 6.38% pa and should we not have paid to remove that charge by 2017, can force a sale of the site to raise cash.
One of the key opportunities we have to pay a substantial (although of itself not nearly sufficient) sum into the pension scheme before 2017 would be to consolidate in the core of the site and then sell the north and east of the site for housing.
- Recent Background
We were approached by the local head of planning around eighteen months ago to see if we would agree to release sufficient of the site for housingfor the building of 150 new dwellings. This question was asked in the context of the then just developing ‘LDF’ (Local Development Framework), where the district is trying to identify the local potential for new housing over the next few years. Having previously been refused planning for housing this was obviously a welcome approach and aligned with our thinking following the previous detail work we had undertaken. Once such a proposal was built into the LDF, planning permission would generally be relatively straightforward and, indeed, might even lead to the housing, or even whole site, being removed from the green belt – giving us much greater future flexibility.
We have worked closely with the planning officers over the last year in producing outline proposals and updated traffic flow details etc.
- Recent Developments
Whilst there has been some resistance from the two neighbouring communities (both are retired, bored, irretrievably ‘NIMBY’ and resolute in their resistance to facts and common sense), up until recently the officers and planning committee have behaved sensibly and correctly in overruling emotional and ill considered objections which have no basis in planning law. However, having lost the argument in committee,one local councillor has had the proposal removed from the LDF at the last minute at the final approval stage at a Cabinet meeting. This was a personal appeal, directly to his fellow councillors, using incorrect information (we are told) and reference to a ‘petition’, also based on incorrect information. The appeal to his colleagues, we are informed, was as much about holding on to his seat at the forthcoming election by showing his constituents how he had ‘seen off BRE again’.
This is unfortunate, to say the least.
Whilst having been part of the decision the council leader has offered a bit of an olive branch in that they are trying to dress up the rejection by saying how important we are as a ‘jewel in the crown’ in terms of employment and profile and how they would prefer us to build on that standing by becoming and even bigger jewel by, with their help (?), growing an ‘eco / high tech business park’ around us here. Clearly, that would likely not generate much cash in the short term compared to selling the land for housing. Nevertheless the leader, head of planning, chairman of planning committee and the heritage portfolio leader are going to visit during May, after the elections, to see the site and have a face to face discussion about these matters.
The council officers are also clearly unhappy with the outcome and they want to bring the issue up again, after the election (when some councillors may not have been re-elected) through the ‘site allocation process’ which we understand sits alongside the LDF. We, and our advisors, are not clear if the LDF issue itself is now closed or whether the issue of the BRE site can be re-opened through this mechanism – it is likely all a matter of timing and politics.
The core case we have made for housing is that it is ‘enabling development’ to raise funds to modernise the core of the site and ensure that we remain on the site in the longer term. This is a fully accepted and established route to planning and, as indicated above, fully supported by the planners. However, the planners are suggesting that it will help them re-open our case if we were to commission an independent report which set out in black and white the financial case for each of the various alternatives we have.
Following detailed discussions with our advisors we are proposing the following;
To commission a report from DTZ (who have extensive knowledge of the site) setting out clearly the following;
- The cost of bringing the core of the site up to a ‘good’ standard.
- The cash that would be generated through a sale of sufficient land for 150 houses.
- The cash that would be generated from the sale of the north and east of the site to a developer partner for the purposes of building a high tech extension to the core area less the rental income we would lose in the short term.
- An estimate of the demand for such high tech business park space both in absolute terms and given our location and the benefits of BRE as ‘anchor’ compared to the local alternatives (Leavesden for instance).
- The value of the total site to a housing developer (with / without planning permission)
Commission an update of the traffic study to take account of latest developments including the new bus route we have negotiated.
Commission a further update to the traffic study to quantify the (significant) impact of us taking an alternative approach of moving labs off this site and then heavily intensifying use of the site by converting all labs to offices and cramming them in. We could do this without further planning permission.
To remind them that we might just leave the site if we cannot get a sensible resolution to these issues.
Given the probable weakening of ‘change of use’ regulations, advise the planners of an alternative based on converting offices in the North and potentially elsewhere to dwellings – outside of their control. Do some feasibility work on this option.
In addition, we understand that it is likely that CLG will, in the near future, issue a circular to all LA’s advising them that there is now a presumption in favour of sustainable housing development. In this case it might make sense for us to put in for immediate outline planning permission for 150 houses on the site before the LDF is in place. This would be very difficult for the LA as an inspector has already agreed that there are, in principle, ‘very special circumstances’ in favour of removing the potential housing land from the green belt and they would only be able to reject by arguing (against the people who wrote the standard on sustainable housing, i.e. us) that such a development would not be sustainable.