Cambridge’s labs and office market needs to step up development further still if it is to meet surging demand for space in the city, said Bidwell’s head of science and technology.
“If we’re talking about cold winds and downturn, we’re not seeing that in Cambridge,” said Max Bryan. “Demand continues to grow, we’re seeing rents being achieved at new headlines and vacancy fall. We are beginning to see the commitment of certain schemes to site, which will help the supply and demand imbalance.”
Bryan was speaking ahead of EG and Bidwells’ Creating a Scientific Superpower conference, to be held at London’s QEII Conference Centre on Monday 20 June. The day-long event will explore how to unlock the UK’s innovation potential – and the role real estate must play. Speakers include Lord David Willetts, president of the Resolution Foundation, as well as representatives from organisations including the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca, British Land and many more.
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Bryan said that with 1m sq ft of demand in Cambridge, development has struggled to keep up – and although green shoots are apparent, the city can do so much more.
“We expect that from the end of 2023 onwards we will see new lab stock coming to the market to support some of the demand,” he added. “But it’s nowhere near enough – probably less than a third of total demand. We haven’t had any new labs since December last year, and we’ll have to wait 21 months for new labs to land. It’s stop-start.”
With demand clear and investors willing to step in with capital, it is often a slow planning system that can hold schemes back, Bryan said.
“Occupier demand is there,” he said. “Capital is there to build buildings. The biggest delay to getting that capital deployed is planning. That is where things can take a lot longer than required.”
In its Radical Capital report, Bidwells has suggested establishing a new ‘innovation’ use class in the planning system, which would be used to designate principal labs and space for knowledge-intensive R&D. Using that use class order, the firm said, any development more than 50,000 sq m could be deemed a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project and be accelerated through the system.
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