A £500million development in Southampton is helping to bring thousands of new homes and jobs to a former shipyard site in Woolston.
Crest Nicholson has so far designed and delivered more than 550 homes on the site, breathing new life into a previously deprived area of the city. Local businesses and national retailers have moved back onto the high street - more than a decade after the local ship-building yard left town – creating a new thriving and prosperous future for the community.
Once complete, Centenary Quay will create 1650 new homes for Woolston (25% will be affordable), as well as a supermarket, library, nursery, restaurants, café and retail space. But none of this would have been possible without public significant public funding.
We asked Chris Tinker, Board Director & Regeneration Chairman at Crest Nicholson why public investment and support has been instrumental in getting homes built on a challenging site:
To kick start the re-development of this former shipyard and begin transforming the site, significant public investment was required. From demolition to site clearance to master-planning, public funding was crucial to making sure the land became attractive to a potential developer.
Crest was appointed as Development Partner in 2007 through an OJEU tender process. With £20million of affordable housing and low carbon infrastructure funding plus support with master-planning, the HCA helped Crest design a sustainable scheme and to secure outline planning permission in 2008.
It is fairly clear that, without this level of public investment, the redevelopment of the shipyard would have faced considerable viability challenges.
The site clearance work and remediation that had already been carried out meant that Crest Nicholson could start developing, safe in the knowledge that there would be no further demolition costs. We could also be confident that many of the risks of challenging clean-up requirements had been minimised leaving us to focus our investment into the new infrastructure and quality public realm.
Of course developing a large scale complex mixed-use scheme on a lower value industrial site remains a challenge. The HCA has further supported the development viability and cash flow with forward payment of S106 costs and deferred land payments, both to the benefit of the project.
The regeneration continues to benefit from HCA involvement. Land is drawn down at the beginning of each phase, where the HCA’s land value is assessed and the HCA can benefit from a profit share arrangement if the phase is successful.
Crest Nicholson also benefits from the HCA’s development expertise, and regular meetings are held with the Board to make key decisions on the progress of the scheme.
Along with the regenerative effects that come with a large scale mixed use development like this, the local community will also be able to enjoy increased access to the riverside for the first time in over 100 years.
As the Government’s land disposal agency for England, we can combine our land and investment programmes, to make public land more attractive to developers, and help to get homes built more quickly.
Our latest Land Development and Disposal Plan released this week sets out land we’re bringing forward over the next 18 months. It details more than 80 sites currently on the market to developers – who can also benefit from our funding and expertise. By continuing to work closely with developers, we will support the Government's aim to release enough land by 2020 to build 160,000 homes.
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