REGENERATION PROJECT OF THE YEAR
Sponsored by
Winner: There were three very diverse finalists:
• Bracknell town centre • Leigh Road, Slough Trading Estate • Lily’s Walk, High Wycombe
Bracknell had already won ‘Town of the Year’, could it make it a double? Following 18 months of significant demolition work, main contractor Mace began major construction in 2015, and by spring 2017 Bracknell Forest Council and its development partner Bracknell Regeneration Partnership will be ready to launch its new 580,000 sq ft retail and leisure destination called The Lexicon.
Along with a new multi-storey car park, shoppers will have a wide choice of high street retailers such as Fenwick, M&S, Next, River Island, Arcadia Group and Primark, plus family restaurants and a 12-screen cinema.
Leigh Road is a key entrance into the Slough Trading Estate. This project involved major investment into the estate’s infrastructure, supporting the redevelopment of 400,000 sq ft of new business and amenity space.
First a £12 million underground relocation of overhead power lines was undertaken. SEGRO then commissioned offsite assembly of a pioneering £10m two-way bridge, ‘pushed’ across a railway line overnight. These unlocked redevelopment potential in the area, enabling the majority of outdated buildings to be upgraded for suitable modern use.
A former gas works site in Lily’s Walk, just a kilometre south of High Wycombe station, is to be transformed by Inland Homes to provide 239 homes, commercial and retail space.
The neighbouring Buckingham House office complex has been purchased by THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2016
businessmag.co.uk
Leigh Road Slough Trading Estate
A new category, sponsored by bankers NatWest, this award recognised the revitalisation of brownfield sites and judges considered not just large-scale regeneration projects but small schemes too.
Inland Homes, potentially providing an 80-home development as phase two of this brownfield project. The regeneration of the 3.5 acres encompassing these sites, plus a new link road, will unlock a derelict area of the town and relieve traffic congestion.
Richard Burt, director real estate of NatWest, announced the winner – the major new infrastructure link and associated regeneration project at Leigh Road, Slough.
Graeme Steer, SEGRO Thames Valley development director explained later that the Leigh Road regeneration project was enabled by capital from SEGRO’s Bath Road office portfolio sale being re-invested into the Slough Trading Estate.
“I am hugely proud of my team because, bearing in mind we still claim to be the largest industrial estate in single ownership in Europe, I don’t think anyone will ever do a project like this anywhere else. To work on that project as a team, and now an award-winning team, is a fantastic thing to have done.”
The gateway entrance into the trading estate was transformed when an existing 100-year-old railway bridge was complemented by ‘sliding’ a new 500- ton two-way bridge into place. “I believe it was the largest bridge ‘slide’ ever undertaken in the UK.
“Millions of pounds were also spent removing pylons and undergrounding electricity cables.”
The bridge was the culmination of a series of projects on the Leigh Road area, each unlocking potential, while redeveloping a number of industrial sites on the estate.
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