How do you bring a local authority, two health bodies and a research centre together to enable a £1bn development plan? With great difficulty, most property professionals would agree.
However, that is what has been achieved in Sutton, south London, where the council has brought together the Epsom & St Helier University Hospital Trust with the renowned Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust to bring forward the London Cancer Hub – a 3m sq ft life sciences district that will specialise in cancer treatment.
The project was initiated by Sutton council, which was looking for ways to generate more economic growth in the borough and realised it already had two of the leading bodies in cancer research in Belmont.
The chief executive and council leader went to visit the ICR to discuss its expansion needs and find out how the borough could more actively support and facilitate its growth and development.
“It turned out it was at the point where it was about to bring forward, or was considering bringing forward, its last available space on site and the site was massively in need of a rethink,” says Amanda Cherrington, head of economic renewal and the business environment at Sutton council.
“We also talked to the Royal Marsden hospital which had several site constraints and, fortuitously at the same time, there was an old hospital site – an NHS site – buffering the other two institutions, and on discussions with the chief executive of the NHS trust it emerged it was interested in completely vacating the site.”
Sutton convened some round table discussions about all of the partners’ aims and what it would take to align everyone’s interests within a cancer hub.
Fast-forward three years to September 2016 and a development framework was published with a detailed spatial strategy for the project, which now forms part of the borough’s local plan.
Detailed planning consent has already been achieved for the first phase, which includes the ICR’s centre for cancer drug discovery building, the Royal Marsden’s Maggie’s centre and a new secondary school, due to open in 2019.
JLL has been instructed to advise on the commercial site delivery strategy and financial partnership structures needed to secure investor and developer partners for the project, with a formal procurement process due to be launched early next year.
Part of the plan includes 1m sq ft of commercial space, which Cherrington believes will create tangible economic benefits for the borough from the commercial tenants it attracts.
“We have done some heavy-detail submarket testing and the big pharmas are all interested, which is quite a commitment, although we don’t have an anchor tenant as yet” she says.
Jamie Ounan, director at Inner Circle Consulting, which advised on the development framework, says: “Each partner understandably operates in different sectors, with individual governance structures, often opposing views on risk adoption and even a variety of terminology driven from with their own individual sector.
“Realising the potential of the site requires coordinated action between partners, landowners, funders and policymakers, including arrangements over land ownership, major investment in new infrastructure and the attraction of high-quality commercial partners.”
Once completed, it is estimated the hub will contribute £1.2bn a year to the UK economy and generate more than £5m per year in business rates.
It will create 7,000 on-site jobs in research, healthcare, administration and leisure, as well as supporting the development of future skills through a new secondary school specialising in life sciences.
“The challenges of such a big and bold vision are usually around aligning the partners around what needs to happen,” says Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief operating officer at the ICR.
“In this case, the support we have had from London Borough of Sutton in articulating the vision, making sure we are aligned in what we want to achieve and practically, in acquiring the land for the partnership, has been fantastic.”
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