Malaysian conglomerate YTL Corporation has begun recruiting a team of consultants for its £800m regeneration of Bristol’s Filton Airfield.
The group submitted the masterplan for the site, which will create a new town across 355 acres, on 7 April. The new arm of the business, called YTL Development UK, is being formed to be the “nucleus” of the project.
Colin Skellett, chief executive of YTL Land and Property UK and Wessex Water Group, said: “YTL started as a housebuilder in Malaysia. It is a business covering waste, energy and hotels. Including Wessex Water, it has £1.5bn in the UK and thinks now is a good time to replicate what it does in Asia. The scheme is about creating a whole new community.”
The company is no stranger to developing large, multifaceted regeneration schemes (see box). Skellett added: “The main difference is that the original application assumed that it would be developed in pieces by a number of developers, whereas YTL will be developing the whole thing itself. This will enable us to look at the masterplan and produce something coherent and aspirational, in terms of pubic space, architecture and connectivity.
“BAE Systems put it on the market with the outline planning virtually there, but not quite finished.”
Although the site will be project managed and built in-house, the group will also seek subcontractors during the construction phase, subject to consent.
Allies & Morrison – which was also involved with Argent’s King’s Cross scheme and the Olympic Park – along with Peter Brett Associates and Grant Associates have been working with YTL on the masterplan, including finding a use for a three-bay Brabazon hangar that sits on the site.
“As part of the acquisition we bought these sizable hangars that were built for the aerospace industry. You can put the whole of the O2 Arena into one of them,” Skellett said.
The office to be built on the site will acknowledge its aviation heritage and inject supply into the constrained Bristol market.
In Bristol city centre there is now less than 100,000 sq ft of grade A office space. The only speculative building is Cubex Land’s 95,000 sq ft Aurora in Finzels Reach. Out-of-town grade A stock is just 6,000 sq ft. City centre headline rents are expected to reach £30 per sq ft this year and remain at £21.50 per sq ft for out of town.
Skellett said: “For businesses, the focus is on aerospace and high tech. The site is close to those industries. You have Rolls Royce, BAE and Airbus on the doorstep, and Abbey Wood, the Ministry of Defence‘s major procurement centre for the UK, just down the road. That is the obvious place to start. We haven’t started marketing yet but have had an encouraging amount of interest from entities that would suit the scheme.”
Another key addition will be the development of a new railway station that fits alongside other infrastructure improvements in the region.
The station will connect to Henbury and Bristol Temple Meads; the new Metrobus network will link to the site and tie in with the electrification of train services to Bristol Parkway.
The plans are part of a large core strategy initiative known as the Cribbs Patchway New Neighbourhood. South Gloucestershire Council has identified scope for around 5,700 homes, around 50 ha of employment land, open spaces, schools and community facilities over the next 10-15 years.
Schemes include the Mall shopping centre, Cribbs Causeway, which has been slated for a 379,000 sq ft extension, and DFE and Taylor Wimpey’s Cribbs Urban Village Local Centre. The Rolls Royce East Works site is located on the opposite side of the A38, which borders the site.
Skellett said that YTL would be looking to obtain outline consent by September 2017 and start on the first phases of homes and commercial property in spring 2018, with infrastructure development starting in 2019.
YTL: a Malaysian family institution
The Yeoh Tiong Lay family runs one of Malaysia’s top ten business groups. It came to prominence in the UK after beating competition from Royal Bank of Scotland to buy West Country water and sewage company Wessex Water for £1.2bn in 2002.
The move enabled the group to gain a foothold in the UK and it has since grown to acquire luxury hotels across the country, including the Threadneedle Hotel in London and the Glasshouse Hotel in Edinburgh.
In Malaysia, YTL owns businesses in areas ranging from cement manufacturing, construction and power generation to the Palau Pangkor Laut island resort.
It has also built hospitals and airports as well as Malaysia’s National Art Gallery and the Express Rail Link from Kuala Lumpur to the new international airport.
YTL Corporation is listed on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange and has floated three other subsidiaries: YTL Power International, YTL Cement and YTL Land.
What is the Filton Airfield scheme?
The 355-acre airfield is one of the largest brownfield sites in the UK.
YTL plans to develop 2,675 homes, a train station and 50 acres of commercial development, including 1.2m sq ft of offices, shops, two district centres, a 70-bed care facility, 120-bed hotel and three schools on the site.
Filton played a large part in designing and building Concorde and the airfield has been called the birthplace of British aviation.
A museum that will house Concorde 216, which has been located at the airfield since its last flight in 2003, adjoins the site.
YTL bought the site in 2015 from BAE Systems, which closed the airfield in 2012 as it was deemed no longer viable. S
Shortly after the closure, Bridgehouse Capital agreed a £120m deal to develop the site with BAE. However, the transaction fell through in April 2014.
Cushman & Wakefield and Savills have been appointed as joint commercial advisers; Alder King is advising on the planning application.
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