BACKING FOR £50M BUSINESS PARK PLAN

Plans for a business park complex expected to create 4,000 jobs have been given the thumbs-up by residents.Developers ProLogis displayed designs for the hi-tech Chatterley Valley park, which will feature an enterprise centre for business start-ups, industrial and office units, hotel and leisure facilities, at Tunstall's Christ Church Hall yesterday.

More than 100 residents turned up to study the plans and the consensus was that the development is just what the area needs.

Paul Cumberlidge, aged 34, of neighbouring Bankeyfields Estate, said: "The area is crying out for redevelopment and more jobs, as there is high unemployment.

"Anything that creates jobs and boosts the economy has to be a good thing."

ProLogis has already been given the green light to develop the area, but the details of the £50 million scheme must now be submitted to Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Newcastle Borough Council for approval.

Richard Halderthay, of Green Issues - the company carrying out the consultation on behalf of ProLogis - said: "We have had very positive feedback generally. People are keen on the regeneration of the area and want to see investment in industry.

"Concerns have been expressed about bus links and we are in talks with bus companies. Following these exhibitions and the feedback we receive and after further discussions with the local authority, the proposals will be finalised."

Under the plans, 100 hectares of former colliery and surrounding land will be transformed into a business site. The developers have also committed to creating public footways and cycleways. They say the park will be among the greenest in the country and provide a blueprint for other business sites in China, India and Mexico.

Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle colleges have been approached about using the development for apprenticeship and training schemes.

As part of the plans ProLogis could create a nature conservation area and set up an education project with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust.

Planning bosses at Stoke-on-Trent City Council have said the scheme will be key to the regeneration of the region.

It is hoped construction of the site can get under way later this year, ready for occupation at the start of 2009.

It is rare that a developer secures a site by bidding less than its competitors. At Chatterley Valley, however, Gazeley and regional development agency Advantage West Midlands are embarking on a £50m industrial scheme that has proved that, even in property, money is not always everything.

In November, Gazeley was appointed preferred developer at the north Staffordshire site, despite offering a lower price for the land than the two other shortlisted parties, ProLogis and West Midlands-based Barberry Developments. Gazeley refuses to reveal how much less was bid for the 31 acres, but the figure is believed to be £3m-£4m.

In return, Advantage West Midlands and its partner, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, will be able to boast the UK’s greenest shed development yet as part of its 250 acre Chatterley Valley regeneration area.

Blue Planet will comprise a single, 385,000 sq ft distribution building and smaller business units totalling 120,000 sq ft, which the developer claims will be ‘carbon positive’ without the need for offsetting.

Advantage West Midlands development manager Andy Bird says that, after undertaking a sustainable shed scheme with ProLogis at nearby Sideway, it was keen to take the concept even further at another former colliery site.

‘The brief was to come forward with a fantastically designed and extremely sustainable scheme,’ he says. ‘Price was nowhere near as important as design, sustainability and delivery.’

Gazeley will attempt to create a carbon-neutral scheme that will be carbon positive in operation. It will feature a biofuel power plant, which will generate electricity for the warehouse and the local community, more efficient insulation, solar cells implanted into special rooflights and kinetic generators that will produce power when vehicles pass over pads implanted at the entrance to the site.

‘[Advantage West Midlands] set its stall out to sell this site to the developer to offer a ground-breaking sustainable development,’ says Gazeley development director Nick Cook.

‘I think a lot of people bidding thought that, when it came to it, price would still be king.

We took them at their word and as a result it had a lower price.’

Gazeley will therefore be able to offer the building at rents only marginally higher than is typical for the area, at no more than £5/sq ft.

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“Price was nowhere near as important as sustainability
”

Andy Bird, Advantage west Midlands

Bird says that new sustainability standards adopted by Advantage West Midlands just before Christmas mean future partnerships with developers will be formed on a similar basis.

‘We are adopting this sort of strategy on all types of sites going forward, where we come to sell sites and where we provide funding,’ he says.

Arrangements where a public sector body accepts a lower land price in return for high sustainability standards looks set to become a trend, particularly as the government attempts to enforce stricter targets on carbon emissions.

The scheme will contribute to Gazeley’s own sustainability targets, too. The developer, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart, has committed to make 35% of its schemes carbon positive by 2010. ‘There will be learning and technologies from Chatterley Valley that we can transfer,’ says Gazeley global director of procurement and sustainability Jonathan Fenton-Jones.

‘It’s a key piece underpinning the way forward.’

Gazeley hopes that Blue Planet will also be a strong selling point in global markets. Fenton-Jones has already presented a scheme similar to Chatterley Valley to the Chinese government in an attempt to unlock sites in the country’s rapidly expanding distribution market.

The Chatterley Valley site already has outline planning consent and a reserve matters application was submitted before Christmas. Gazeley hopes to receive planning permission in March, which could mean starting on site in June and completion by the year-end.

The development could well be launched into tougher market conditions than other recent sustainable developments, particularly if the economy slips further towards recession. Will sustainability remain high on occupiers’ agendas when their businesses are facing hard times? Fenton-Jones believes so.

‘The kind of occupier we will do business with at Blue Planet will have a long-term perspective that goes beyond a short-term blip in the property market,’ he argues.

He adds that, if investors are drawn toward good quality in an uncertain investment market, then green buildings should benefit.

In a market where big shed sites are scarce, developers must adopt ever more sophisticated tactics to secure land. With sustainability riding high on the global agenda, Gazeley and AWM’s agreement at Chatterley Valley may well be a sign of things to come.