The South West Regional Development Council, along with local councils and developers, is working up schemes designed to entice companies further west along the M5. Neil Jones looks at plans afoot
The image of Somerset as a county that is travelled through, rather than to, is changing – albeit rather more slowly than some investors would like.
Much of the good work to improve Somerset’s “stickability” is being led by the South West Regional Development Agency, which is putting its weight behind a string of schemes and refurbishment projects.
All are aimed at persuading occupiers to set their sights a little further west than the traditional West Country strongholds of Greater Bristol and Bath.
Equally, developers such as Express Park Development Company and Summerfield are working hard to convince those seeking office and distribution space that there is often little need to travel along the M5 to Exeter and beyond to fulfil their requirements.
Geoff Revell, Alder King’s former Taunton office partner and now commercial director of the mixed-use scheme, also called Express Park, in Bridgwater, praises the work of the public sector to improve Somerset’s profile.
“The increasing influence of SWRDA and a regional planning approach is changing the pattern of the West Country, especially Somerset,” he says.
“SWRDA’s proposals for a major new regeneration scheme providing offices, a transport node at Taunton’s Firepool site and the English Estates/SWRDA investment at Locking Castle, Weston-super-Mare will provide significant development focal points.”
An urban expansion study led by SWRDA is also under way in Taunton. This includes the creation of a 150 acre science park with related infrastructure at Monkton Heathfield.
“It all adds up to good news for a county where, in comparative terms, these are major developments and improvements,” adds Revell.
Express Park, a stone’s throw from junction 23 of the M5, has made significant progress since its inception in the 1990s, although the past 12 months have seen pace slow a little.
Revell hopes the impetus will pick up with the completion this spring of the 105 acre site’s first office building – a 54,250 sq ft speculative development that overlooks the River Parrett to the Quantock Hills.
The largest single speculative office development in the region for 12 months, the building is being targeted at the call centre/customer service centre market with a starting rent of £13.50 per sq ft.
Revell says: “Some negotiations are under way. We have also received interest from tenants.”
A Whitbread Travel Inn and Brewsters pub is also under construction, while Express Park Company has a commitment to create the Exchange, a scheme incorporating serviced offices, a day nursery, café, health and fitness centre and a 180-seat conference theatre.
This follows office supplies company Options 123’s decision during the winter to sign for 15,000 sq ft at the park. Options 123 is paying £5.60 per sq ft.
When completed, Express Park will provide around 1.5m sq ft of space. “It’ll be larger than Temple Quay in Bristol and will have space for double the number of employees proposed at the Met Office centre in Exeter,” the developer points out.
Andrew Maynard, associate director at Alder King’s Taunton office, points out that, while Express Park is the only major scheme with space to attract large occupiers, there is an encouraging amount of activity in Somerset at a lower level. At Summerfield’s Blackbrook Business Park in Taunton, for example, work is under way on phase II of half-a-dozen courtyard-style units of 6,000 sq ft, some of which have already let.
“Apart from Express Park, attention is also now turning to some of the longer-term plans for Taunton that will hopefully bear fruit in the next few years,” says Maynard.
Local agents estimate that around 85,000 sq ft of space was taken up in Taunton last year at rents ranging from £10.50 to £13.50 per sq ft.
Developer interest in the town is likely to pick up with SWRDA, Somerset council and Taunton Deane council’s appointment of Bournemouth-based planning consultant Terence O’Rourke to produce a masterplan for regeneration.
This will focus on potential areas of expansion to meet residential development targets and integrated transport needs.
Meanwhile, on its outskirts, a joint venture between St Modwen and AXA is pushing ahead with a mixed-use redevelopment on the former 60 acre Taunton trading estate, which was developed in the 1960s on the site of a wartime army supply depot.
The jv is proposing a mix of more than 500 homes and 112,000 sq ft of industrial, and intends to demolish the estate, which is in the town’s Norton Fitzwarren area.
Ray Hill, a retail surveyor with St Modwen, says he hopes work will start this summer on the first phase of 125 houses and 75,500 sq ft of industrial.
One of the largest mixed-use developments in the county involves plans to redevelop the 31 acre former tannery site at Morlands, Glastonbury.
Proposals for the £25m-£30m development are being drawn up and include 50,000 sq ft of non-food shops, 100 homes, a garden centre, and hotel and community facilities.
SWRDA development manager Chris Foley says: “Local people have waited a long time for something to happen with this site.”
Meanwhile, one of Somerset’s industrial old-timers, shoe manufacturer and retailer Clarks, is submitting planning permission this summer for a 592,000 sq ft European distribution headquarters and 350 homes in Street.
The homes will be developed next to the HQ, which will replace several warehouses.
Street is Clarks’ birthplace, with Cyrus Clark having created the company as a sheepskin tannery in 1825.
Chris Cluff, partner at Cluff Commercial, Taunton, says the Clarks plan is an example of a trend that is starting to appear in the market for building homes on former commercial land.
“Many commercial sites now being bought for redevelopment are for residential schemes. We have been involved in the sale of two former commercial sites to Magna Housing Association in Bridgwater and Cannington
|
Weston-super-Mare: Improving the business community |
|
Will Weston-super-Mare ever lose its tag of being simply a commuter town for the Greater Bristol conurbation? This is one of the major questions being posed by property watchers, many of whom believe the north Somerset town’s development as a significant employer in its own right is long over due. The scale of redevelopment being considered in the area is significant. Some 247 acres of land could be brought forward for development as part of a 20-year urban regeneration scheme, according to a vision for the town published by English Partnerships, SWRDA and north Somerset council. Proposals include: ● the creation of 1.29m sq ft of industrial and office space at the 81 acre former RAF Locking training base site; ● more than 9.9 acres of shops and seafront apartment development in the town centre; ● construction of more than 2,000 homes and 1.07m sq ft of mixed-use, including hotels and restaurants, at the 99 acre Weston airfield; ● and an allocation of up to 74 acres of edge-of-town offices and distribution space. Peter Fisher, north Somerset council’s deputy leader, says: “The initiative sets targets for providing jobs, houses, leisure and retail opportunities and environmental improvements. Alistair Bond, senior partner at Hartnell Taylor Cook, believes Weston will soon have many of the necessary building blocks in place to be in a position to make a challenge for any office or industrial requirement. “SWRDA is doing excellent work in trying to pull something together for Weston. I guess it needs one major letting to get the ball rolling. Weston stands to benefit enormously as development land becomes in increasingly short supply in the Bristol area,” he says. However, it is not all good news for the resort town. Efforts to improve its business community have not been helped by a decision by DAS Legal Expenses Insurance to put on ice plans for a 68,000 sq ft office scheme at Locking Castle Business Park in Worle. DAS spokesman Jonathan Essex declines to expand on the firm’s decision, saying simply: “We have no intention of either looking for more space or developing any. The land at Weston is there should we need it in the future.” |
