Urban&Civic and the secretary of state for defence have submitted their masterplan for the 6,500-home, £2.2bn redevelopment of the former home of the Royal Engineers in South Cambridgeshire.
Plans for the 715-acre Waterbeach site include thousands of flats, houses, hundreds of acres of parkland, four schools and the redevelopment of existing military facilities.
“Outside London, Waterbeach is the best brownfield site in the country,” says U&C chief executive Nigel Hugill.
The back story
The site was one of the first large-scale disposals through the Defence Infrastructure Organisation for the MoD after the DIO was created in 2011.
Previously home to the Royal Engineers it was, according to Hugill, “a middle-class transit camp,” rather than a contaminated or heavily fortified military base.
U&C fended off competition from Taylor Wimpey and Dorchester Group to take on the lucrative development management contract in September 2014. It hopes to begin work by the end of the year.
“On something like an MoD selection, it shouldn’t take longer than three years from being selected to getting planning. If it takes longer, then the authority is going slowly or the developer is incompetent,” says Hugill.
Under the arrangements of the deal, the actual ownership of site stays with the MoD. U&C will masterplan the site and supply the infrastructure, and sell on the plots to housebuilders, with a split in the profits. As part of the deal, U&C must sell off at least 70% of the plots.
Assuming an average selling price of £350,000 per home, the scheme could have an end value of well over £2.2bn.
If U&C receives planning, it will start to build out the infrastructure, then parcel it out to housebuilders. However, a large chunk of the scheme could be sold early to the rental market.
“Here part of the critical mass is about building PRS. This is like Stratford. We will build a lot of private rental early to get it going,” says Hugill.
He says the scheme could include as many as 1,000 rental homes, and that U&C would look to do it in partnership with someone like APG or M&G.
Hugill is no stranger to the private rented sector, having been instrumental in the development of the Olympic Village in Stratford. Before founding U&C in 2009, he was chief executive of Elliott Bernerd’s Chelsfield before going on to chair Lendlease’s European operations from 2005 to 2008.
An artificial lake
At the centre of the development sits a 20-acre lake dug by the engineers to test amphibious landing vehicles. U&C intends the surrounding area to be the most high density and include several blocks of apartments, which it says will be well suited to the rental market.
Hugill says: “It massively adds to the quality of the environment being created. It’s absolutely unique, and does not just add to housing values, but changes the organisation of how you would plan it.”
The rental option will be suitable not only because of the phasing and initial investment in the site, but also because of the demographics of Cambridge. U&C is expecting to draw 25-40 year olds from the city’s tech quarter, a young, transitory population.
Waterbeach itself sits about five miles to the north of Cambridge. The existing village has a population of around 4,500 people in 1,500 homes. Hugill says the plans do not aim to usurp the local village, or compete with Cambridge, and thus do not include many shops. The plans instead provide leisure facilities and small workspaces.
But transporting 15,000 more people to and from Cambridge, or at least out of the village, is a big part of the plans.
The northern approaches to Cambridge are poorly served by road, and though Waterbeach has a rail station, it is relatively inaccessible from the new town. The application calls for improvements to road infrastructure, and includes the possible relocation of the station. It also includes new cycle routes between the
village and Cambridge itself, away from the A-road.
Urban&Civic is committing nearly £15m of investment to early cycle and bus connections and to support improvements to the local rail station, ahead of a significant contribution towards the final strategic A10 solution.
But owing to the hefty infrastructure commitment, it is unlikely the scheme will include the 40% affordable housing required by South Cambridgeshire Council. Hugill admits he has been quoted as saying it will be “materially less than that,” but describes the scheme as “affordable Cambridge”, at roughly £400 a sq ft.
“It depends on how much money is wanted for other elements,” he says.
Waterbeach’s outline planning application includes:
- up to 6,500 homes, including up to 600 residential care home units;
- 97,000 sq ft of community facilities, including community centres, health care facilities, nurseries, libraries, places of worship and museums;
- up to 75,000 sq ft of sports and fitness centres, including gyms, and other cultural and recreational space;
- up to 177,600 sq ft of shops, no unit larger than 43,000 sq ft;
- employment space: offices, research and development and light industrial units, of up to 161,500 sq ft;
- a lakeside hotel of up to up to 43,000 sq ft;
- three primary schools, incorporating a preschool and a secondary school; and
- supporting infrastructure improvements and investments in energy centres; waste management facilities, upgrades and services; drainage works and sustainable urban drainage systems.
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