Savills tasked with finding Kingston JV partner

Savills has been appointed to advise on one of London’s biggest estate redevelopment projects – the procurement of a joint venture partner for the Cambridge Road Estate in Kingston, which has the potential to provide 2,000 homes. The agency is coming to the market later this month via the Official Journal of the European Union to find a partner to “jointly plan, design, fund and deliver a comprehensive regeneration of the estate over a circa 10-year period”. Cambridge Road is an 8.6ha estate about half a mile from Kingston town centre. The council has been carrying out a variety of land acquisitions to allow for the redevelopment of the estate, as well as we buying the King’s Place and Conquest House office buildings to provide income generation. It has also been buying land for the £400m redevelopment of the Eden Walk shopping centre, which is being brought forward by British Land and the Universities Superannuition Scheme and received consent in March. Initial site acquisitions at Cambridge Road will be funded by a GLA loan of £25m, to be paid to the council between 2017 and 2019, subject to the signing of an intervention agreement. The council owns the freehold of the 830-home estate, of which 178 are leasehold or freehold. It says that as a minimum, any development proposal must replace on site the existing social rented units. Proposals must also include units for resident leaseholders and freeholders should they opt to remain on the estate. The council is seeking a 50:50 corporate JV, set up as an LLP instead of a limited company. The estate has GLA Housing Zone status with an indicative funding allocation of £46.2m. The decision to appoint a partner to work with the council on the masterplanning and delivery was approved by the council’s growth committee on 16 March. The OJEU notice will be submitted on Monday next week, ahead of the appointment of a delivery partner in the summer of 2018. Kevin Davis, leader of Kingston Council, said in March: “This the biggest single step towards large scale Kingston estate regeneration since the foundation of the current borough in 1965. This is an important moment in the history of our borough as we seek to provide higher quality housing for our council tenants and seek to do what we can to address the rising need for future council owned homes. ”We are going to be recruiting a partner to work with us and our residents to invest in, plan and deliver an excellent scheme for Kingston. There’s huge potential, with the site offering the opportunity to increase the number of homes, of mixed type and tenure, to around 2,000 from 830. “I look forward to getting this process under way and working together with our chosen partner to create better homes and improve the lives of our residents.” To send feedback, e-mail nick.johnstone@egi.co.uk or tweet @n_johnstone or @estatesgazette