Bracknell Forest Council offers major development and investment opportunity to market

Avison Young has been appointed by Bracknell Forest Council to find an investment and development partner to form a 50:50 Joint Venture (JV) to deliver key elements of the on-going regeneration of Bracknell town centre and the immediate area.

The multi-site opportunity is initially for residential-led mixed use development across three central sites, with capacity for circa 700 residential units over six acres of land. There will also be the potential for additional sites to be added within the borough and new opportunities to be identified by the JV over time.

The ongoing regeneration follows the successful and nationally applauded first two phases, which culminated in the launch of The Lexicon – a £270m retail and leisure development which saw visits exceed expectations by 1 million in the first year.

Bracknell is the first post-war new town to be comprehensively masterplanned, demolished and redeveloped. The Lexicon is one of the largest urban regeneration schemes created in the UK over the past decade. This success can be attributed to the drive of the council and its partners (Bracknell Regeneration Partnership) in the central phase, and to the strong partnership between them.  The Lexicon has won a number of industry and peer awards for its committed focus on regeneration, and a strong collaborative approach with determined development partners.

The council is now seeking to appoint a partner for other phases of regeneration using an OJEU Competitive Dialogue process.

Charles Trustram Eve, Director at Avison Young, comments:

“This is a fantastic opportunity to work with a forward-looking and proactive authority to deliver regeneration that builds on Bracknell’s successes of recent years. The town centre is changing rapidly with the opening of The Lexicon in 2017 with a number of other important retail and leisure developments in the pipeline.

“The JV will have the potential to operate beyond the town centre on a variety of projects throughout the borough. The opportunity is therefore broad and the right partner will need a breadth of experience to match.”

Bracknell is widely recognised as one of the most productive areas in the UK and is home to a number of major corporate companies, including Waitrose. It is also a recognised hub for the technology sector, with occupiers including Panasonic, Fujitsu, Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprises. It benefits from a direct train service to London Waterloo, is conveniently situated between the M3 and M4, and is just 19 miles away from London Heathrow.

Timothy Wheadon, Chief Executive at Bracknell Forest Council, adds:

“We’re a dynamic and forward thinking council with a strong track record of delivering high quality regeneration with our partners. We’ve already delivered two phases of comprehensive regeneration with development partners and now we’re looking for a new partner to continue to expand Bracknell’s regeneration success story.

“We are looking for a partner that has the financial capabilities, technical resource and experience to support the council and proactively facilitate the delivery of the exciting next phase.”

Interested parties are invited to submit a Standard Selection Questionnaire (SSQ) by 12 noon on 27th June 2019 using the South East Business Portal.