L&G’s Scots resi plans in limbo as council reviews its options
Legal & General’s hopes of a first rental scheme in Scotland have been dealt a blow as Edinburgh Council and its arms-length development arm, EDI, review options for the Fountainbridge development.
L&G had been in discussions to take on the 300-home rental scheme in Edinburgh, which has a GDV in excess of £110m.
However, the council decided at the beginning of March to conduct a review into bringing EDI and other companies back in-house as it reviews its existing regeneration arrangements, throwing the scheme into doubt.
Legal & General’s hopes of a first rental scheme in Scotland have been dealt a blow as Edinburgh Council and its arms-length development arm, EDI, review options for the Fountainbridge development.
L&G had been in discussions to take on the 300-home rental scheme in Edinburgh, which has a GDV in excess of £110m.
However, the council decided at the beginning of March to conduct a review into bringing EDI and other companies back in-house as it reviews its existing regeneration arrangements, throwing the scheme into doubt.
A council spokesman, said: “Following our announcement about EDI, and the council changing current arrangements for city development by providing a new, in-house, one-stop shop for developers and investors, we are currently considering our options for the site. These will be reported to committee in due course.”
The review will even consider non-residential options for the site, which has struggled to find a backer.
The 8.2-acre India Quay site was originally earmarked as the Bank of Scotland’s headquarters, though plans fell through when it was bought by Lloyds Bank during the financial crisis.
EDI, set up to build Edinburgh Park in the late 1980s, bought the site from Lloyds for £15m in 2011. Plans were drawn up for a 687,000 sq ft scheme including offices, shops and a hotel, as well as rental homes.
Originally, Lothbury Investment Management was poised to make a deal at the back end of 2015, before Apache and Moda looked at the site in 2016. L&G were the latest to show interest, and remain in discussions with the council.
The scheme could be L&G’s fifth rental housing development. In March it bought a 171-home site in Bath for £47.5m, and it has existing schemes in Bristol, Salford and Walthamstow. It has a total housing pipeline of over 70,000 units, of which 1,200 are build-to-rent homes.
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