The Royal Bank of Scotland’s distressed real estate business has completed a series of deals to sell major chunks of land to house builders as it looks to accelerate its divestment in property.
RBS Real Asset Management has sold a seven-acre site at its mixed-use Heartlands development, West Lothian, to Bellway.
The site has planning permission for 88 homes and the potential for a second phase of 2,000 homes, and is located adjacent to the M8 halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Bellway has already started construction and completion of its first houses will take place in mid-February.
The deal comes after RBS funded extensive reclamation and remediation work to reclaim the former colliery land for development. The work paved the way for the first privately funded Scottish motorway junction, which opened in October.
The opening of the new junction helped to secure the sale to Bellway and a previous deal with Taylor Wimpey for eight acres of land.
RBS has also secured planning permission for a 90-acre mixed-use scheme and completed the sale of around 27 acres of the Heartlands business park.
The remaining parcels of land for development will be brought forward for sale by the bank in the near future.
In addition to the residential and commercial planning at Heartlands, RBS Real Estate Asset Management has achieved planning permission for 2,600 homes on sites across the UK over the past few years, and established 11 joint ventures with developers to ensure these are brought to market quickly.
Helen Gordon, global head of RBS Real Estate Asset Management, said: “RBS is committed to working through its portfolio of land to secure planning for new homes, delivering high-quality residential and commercial developments, and creating sustainable new communities as well as value for our shareholders.
“The Heartlands new town development demonstrates the ability of our in-house experts and partners to take a large, complex site through the planning process, providing the necessary investment in major new infrastructure to ensure delivery, and thereby enabling us to sell the land for an optimum price.
“Our specialist team of residential experts is working hard on the rest of our portfolio to deliver further new homes and communities for the coming years. We are working alongside local authorities and local people to ensure all our land is put into valuable use, and I look forward to further sales to developers and house builders not only on Heartlands, but on our sites across the UK.”
jack.sidders@estatesgazette.com
