One Public Estate Programme annual report

What is One Public Estate

The government launched One Public Estate in 2013.

One Public Estate is an established national programme. The programme works with more than 300 councils and is delivered in partnership with the:

• Local Government Association
• Office of Government Property within the Cabinet Office

It provides funding and support to enable councils to deliver public property and land initiatives in collaboration with the central government and other local agencies.

One Public Estate aims to get more from the collective public sector estate including:

• unlocking surplus sites for new housing and jobs
• enabling more joined-up public services for local communities
• creating further opportunities for local authorities and public sector partners to reduce running costs and generate income to deliver savings for the taxpayer

In 2017, the national programme expanded its partnership to include the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities’ (then the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) new Land Release Fund. The Land Release Fund aims to accelerate the release of local authority-owned land for housing to help increase the public sector contribution to land supply and innovation in housebuilding.

Three core objectives of One Public Estate

1. Economic growth through the creation of new homes and jobs
2. Delivering more integrated, customer-focused services with property as an enabler
3. Generating efficiencies through capital receipts and reduced running costs

Local programme

The local programme was established in November 2016, under the leadership of the Greater Brighton Economic Board.

It brings together representatives from the participating local authorities, health commissioner and provider trusts, emergency services and education to work on property-focused initiatives through sharing and collaboration including with the central government.

The local programme recognises the importance of public sector bodies, as major landowners and as anchor institutions, in making the best use of the city region’s limited land supply, to help build the economic, social, and environmental resilience of the region.

Environmental pledges

In 2020 the Greater Brighton Economic Board agreed on 10 ambitious Environmental Pledges to tackle climate change and move the City Region towards net zero. Where appropriate, the local programme will look to support the realisation of these pledges by considering the sustainability and resilience implications associated with maximising the potential of the One Public Estate.

The local programme, led by the Property and Design Team at Brighton & Hove City Council, aims to facilitate closer cooperation and coordination between member organisations and key stakeholders.

This is supported by 2 partnership boards - the Greater Brighton Public Sector Property Group and the Greater Brighton Housing and Growth Sites Working Group.

Greater Brighton Public Sector Property Group

Established in October 2016, the Greater Brighton Public Sector Property Group comprises representatives from the region’s participating local authorities, the health sector, emergency services and education, as well as from the national and West and East Sussex County Council One Public Estate programmes.

The group meets quarterly and is responsible for:

• providing oversight of and support to the programme’s projects
• identifying new One Public Estate opportunities

It also provides a forum to engage public sector landowners in the delivery of key initiatives and themes relating to asset management and use and the built environment.

Greater Brighton Housing and Growth Sites Working Group

Formed in November 2019, the Greater Brighton Housing and Growth Sites Working Group brings together all Greater Brighton local authorities and Homes England to focus specifically on housing and regeneration, covering supply and delivery, funding and investment, policy and standards, and programmes and initiatives.

The group meets quarterly to:

• share learning and best practice
• provide peer support and review
• identify and progress opportunities for collaboration and joint work

Locally led partnerships of public sector bodies can bid for funding from the national programme to repurpose underutilised or surplus public estate for housing, regeneration, and other locally determined uses.

From 2022 to 2023, the local programme was awarded £104,349 in additional funding to support a Land Release Fund project at Victoria Road, Worthing.

The total funding awarded to the local programme now stands at £6,305,806.37, supporting a portfolio of 34 projects.

One Public Estate revenue funding

£1,347,500 in One Public Estate revenue funding is being used to support the development of 12 projects that are being led by various public sector bodies.

The funding is being used for a range of activities to provide the evidence base needed to make robust asset management decisions, including:

• feasibility
• viability
• master planning
• business case development
• project management support

It's currently expected that these projects will facilitate the delivery of:

• circa 1,000 new homes
• £46min capital receipts
• £7.5m in reduced running costs
• 5,035 new jobs (including construction)
• 29,000sqm of employment floorspace (excluding uses previously defined as D1)

One Public Estate projects are by nature embryonic and the local programme’s projects are at varying stages of development. These forecast outputs will likely change as business cases are completed and as schemes are developed and approved.

Land Release Fund

£4,958,306.37 in Land Release Fund capital funding is being used to enable the delivery of 22 projects (one of which has also received One Public Estate funding) creating circa 500 new homes on local authority-owned land.

The funding is being used for small-scale land remediation and infrastructure works. It's enabling the viability of these projects by filling the funding gaps caused by abnormal development costs and scheme-specific complexities. The Land Release Fund projects form part of the following programmes.

Adur and Worthing Council’s Developing Pathways to Affordable Homes

A 4-year programme that will create a combined total of 1,400 affordable homes by 2025 – at least 250 of which will be directly delivered by the councils.

To date, Adur District Council has secured £973,000 in Land Release Fund funding to support 7 projects to provide 76 new homes on council-owned land, all of which will be affordable. The projects are being delivered as part of the councils’ Affordable Homes Delivery programme

Brighton & Hove City Council’s New Homes for Neighbourhoods programme

Building much-needed new rented council homes on council-owned land. New Homes for Neighbourhoods forms part of the council’s package of actions to provide more housing in the city.

Since 2015 New Homes for Neighbourhoods has delivered 269 homes across 14 projects, and it has a further pipeline of sites set to provide approximately 500 homes.

Brighton & Hove City Council has secured £3,587,987 in Land Release Fund funding to date, to support the delivery of 10 projects providing 417 new homes – 2 of which have already been successfully completed.

Bunker Housing Cooperative

A pipeline of small sites owned by Brighton & Hove City Council is being redeveloped by Bunker Housing Cooperative, a self-build housing co-operative for low-income families and individuals in the city, for affordable housing in perpetuity.

The council will dispose of the sites by long lease to Bunker Housing Cooperative, subject to their securing funding and obtaining planning consent for each scheme. The homes will be available to households meeting the council’s allocations criteria and/or on Homemove, the council’s housing register, via membership of the cooperative and the rents will be well below the city’s market rate.

To date, Bunker Housing Cooperative in partnership with Brighton & Hove City Council has secured £139,875.37 in Land Release Fund funding to support 4 projects that will deliver 13 new homes. Two of these sites are no longer coming forward following planning applications and local area consultations

The local programme is required to submit triannual reports to the national programme, showing the progress of each of the 34 funded projects against their project plans and highlighting any issues and risks. Despite the impacts of COVID-19 and the need to reprofile some milestones and outputs, the projects generally continue to make steady progress and the case studies that follow aim to showcase some of the key achievements of the past year.

List of projects

One Public Estate projects

1. Worthing Integrated Care Centre, Worthing.
2. Preston Circus Fire Station, Brighton.
3. Preston Barracks Primary Care Centre, Brighton.
4. Moulsecoomb Housing and Community Hub, Brighton.
5. Brighton General Hospital, Brighton.
6. Springman House, Lewes.
7. Hove Station Quarter, Hove.
8. Patcham Court Farm, Brighton.
9. North Street Quarter, Lewes.
10. Burgess Hill Station Quarter, Burgess Hill.
11. Morley Street/Ivory Place, Brighton.
12. Future of Public Sector Office (strategic).

Land Release Fund projects

1. Kensington Street, Brighton.
2. Selsfield Drive, Brighton.
3. Victoria Road, Brighton.
4. Windlesham House, Brighton.
5. Former Hollingbury Library, Brighton.
6. Rotherfield Crescent, Brighton.
7. Moulsecoomb Housing & Community Hub, Brighton.
8. Eastergate Road, Brighton.
9. Oakley House, Brighton.
10. Portslade Village Centre, Brighton.
11. Dunster Close – Garage, Brighton.
12. Dunster Close – Hammerhead, Brighton.
13. Hinton Close, Brighton.
14. Natal Road, Adur.
15. Daniel Close, Adur.
16. St Giles Close, Adur.
17. Gardner Road, Adur.
18. Sylvan Road, Adur.
19. Wilmot Road, Adur.
20. Gravelly Crescent, Adur.
21. Ashcroft Sheltered Housing Scheme, Adur.
22. Victoria Road, Worthing.

Project title: Worthing Integrated Care Centre, Worthing

Delivery body: Worthing Borough Council

Funding award: £90,000 One Public Estate, phase 4

This project is delivering a landmark £34 million healthcare centre on the site of the council’s former car park on Stoke Abbott Road, located in the heart of Worthing.

Funded by Worthing Borough Council, the project is transforming the brownfield site to deliver the state-of-the-art Worthing Integrated Care Centre (WICC) that will provide GP, mental health, community, and dentistry services under one roof, as well as providing a pharmacy and additional services for families and young children.

It will see Worthing Medical Group, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust services integrated into one facility that will support the long-term health of the community and bring huge benefits to residents across the whole of Worthing.

The project is also set to include an adjacent 6-storey car park capable of accommodating 190 vehicles and 36 bicycles, with a further 28 cycle bays.

On Friday 11 February 2022, representatives of each of the partners were joined by Worthing West MP Sir Peter Bottomley and East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton for the ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony at the site.

The WICC will boast some of the highest environmental standards with an air source heat pump that will provide the majority of heating, as well as photovoltaic solar panels.

Progress has been good and construction is now fully underway. Practical Completion is due by the end of 2023.

Project title: Hinton Road Garage Site and Bunker Housing

Delivery body: Brighton & Hove City Council

Funding award: £43,311.31 - Land Release Fund SCB, LRF phase 3

In its Corporate Plan, Brighton & Hove City Council has committed to providing genuinely affordable homes and includes a commitment to supporting community-led housing and to identifying sites for this purpose.

Sites which are not considered viable for development by the council due to their smaller size and/or challenging access or layout issues are made available for community-led housing through an ongoing partnership led by Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust to build self-build homes for affordable rent, with a range of community-led housing partners.

One such group is Bunker Housing Co-operative, formed initially by two families who struggled to find suitable housing at an affordable cost in the city. Bunker is a self-build housing co-operative, defined as individuals or a group that finance, codesign and commissions the homes from an SME builder rather than purchasing a finished product from a developer. The Bunker families formed the cooperative and worked with the council on its community-led housing pilot scheme to develop their first 2 houses on a former garage site.

The small (0.068 ha) site at Hinton Close in Brighton was a former garage block brought forward for community-led housing. It was identified as part of a review of small sites owned by the Council’s Housing Revenue Account and deemed as unviable for the council’s own council house development programme due to negative land value. As the Housing Revenue Account owns the land, the council’s commitment to the provision of affordable housing on it is paramount. To aid viability the council has agreed to dispose of the site on a long lease rather than sell for a capital sum upfront.

Development of the Hinton Close site stalled due to costly infrastructure costs resulting from the challenging site topography - narrow access off an existing cul de sac - and increasing build costs. An allocation of BLRF/ SCB helped to bridge the funding gap and, coupled with the enabling funds from a community-led self-build programme, has allowed the project to move forward.

Effective community engagement promoted local support for the planning application and planning approval for the final scheme was granted in March 2023. Construction is due to begin on site in August 2023 with a target completion date for occupation of the finished houses in August 2024.

Project title: Victoria Road, Brighton

Delivery body: Brighton & Hove City Council

Funding award: £340,000 Land Release Fund, phase 1

This project is redeveloping the site of a former housing office and bowls club in Portslade to create 42 new affordable rented homes in a city where demand is far outstripping supply. It's being delivered by the council’s New Homes for Neighbourhoods Programme and forms part of the council’s package of actions to provide more housing in the city.

Construction of the new sports pavilion on the adjacent Victoria Recreation Ground was completed in February 2021, providing a new home for Portslade Bowls Club as well as new FA-compliant football-changing facilities. The new pavilion includes an outdoor artificial all-weather bowling green, a short mat indoor bowls area, changing rooms, a kitchen, football changing facilities and a kiosk for serving refreshments.

The council is working with Morgan Sindall Construction to build the new homes, which will be a mix of 1, 2 and 3-bedroom flats that will be let through the council’s housing register Homemove, which currently has a waiting list of approximately 7,000 households. The scheme includes a landscaped communal garden for residents with raised planters, trees, a small orchard, seating, and grass amenity space, plus living walls on 6 elevations of the blocks of flats that will be watered with recycled rainwater. Construction work began in spring 2021 and the ‘topping out’ ceremony was held on 02 December 2021.

Construction is now complete with tenants having moved into their new homes in May 2023.

The development will be the first new council housing project in the city with a ground source heat pump system to provide heating and hot water for residents. The homes will also benefit from a range of other sustainability features, including a light gauge steel frame, solar panels and high levels of insulation creating low-energy bills and high-quality homes for future residents.

A Whole Life Carbon assessment of the scheme is being undertaken by Morgan Sindall and will be vital in informing the design and construction of future housing schemes within the New Homes for Neighbourhoods programme.

The housing scheme has been shortlisted for an Unlock Net Zero Live award for the building/development of the year by a housing association/local authority category.

Project title: Ashcroft Sheltered Housing

Delivery body: Worthing Council

Funding award: £407,000

The Ashcroft Sheltered Housing scheme is located on Kingston Lane in Shoreham By Sea. The site consists of a main block of 21 flats (including bedsits and 2-bed flats) and 8 bungalows and has offered sheltered housing to council tenants since 1982.

In January 2020 all residents were decanted from the main building due to fire safety concerns, and the block has remained entirely unoccupied since. The outdated state and layout of the building and the costs required to update and maintain it suggests that the building is at the end of its useful life and is now considered moribund by the council.

The council modelled options for refurbishment and redevelopment and consulted with residents. In March 2021, a preferred option was agreed which consists of knocking the block down and constructing a new block of 43 units with modern assistive technology and flexible care packages, providing residents with a wide range of needs with accessible, modern accommodation with attractive communal areas. The scheme has got the backing of local members and the Executive Member for Housing, and the Council’s Affordable Housing Delivery Group and Sheltered Housing Team.

The need to demolish the main block currently rendered the scheme unviable, so alternative support was sought to enable the scheme to be brought forward.

The provision of BLRF funding addressed this challenge to enable the project to move forward, delivering much-needed purpose-built accommodation provided at social rent levels for elderly people. As a result of the scheme, 44 (up from the original 43) social housing units will come forward, releasing other desperately-needed homes for general needs accommodation, and in combination, house a significant proportion of the 756 households currently on the Council’s housing register (158 of which are older households and would qualify for accommodation at Ashcroft).

The scheme was awarded £407,000 for demolition and other costs, under phase 3 BLRF.

Demolition is due to be completed by summer 2023 with construction due to begin in the second half of 2023 and completion in early 2025.

Adur District Council Small Sites programme

This programme is redeveloping small sites in council ownership, most of which are blocks of garages, to deliver much-needed affordable housing in an area with over 700 households on the housing waiting list – with numbers rising as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt.

1. St Giles Close
2. Gardner Road
3. Sylvan Road
4. Wilmot Road
5. Daniel Close
6. Gravelly Crescent

Land Release Fund funding is supporting the council to deliver 6 six of these sites. The sites comprise out-of-date garages, some in a serious state of dilapidation and many used for storage as they are too small for modern cars. The sites are underutilised and uninviting and are subject to antisocial behaviour, including fly-tipping. The programme will regenerate these sites, creating 33 new council homes for rent and improved landscaping for wider public use.

Bespoke plans for each of the sites have been produced and, following online public consultation on the initial proposals in the summer of 2020, refined by architects to also consider site surveys and feedback from planning officers. The proposals vary from site to site and are for a range of 2 and 3-bedroom homes and 1 and 2-bedroom flats and bungalows, with some suitable for people with mobility problems to meet a range of housing needs.

In autumn 2021 planning permission was secured for 4 four sites:

• St Giles Close
• Gardner Road
• Sylvan Road
• Wilmot Road

Following some delays enabling works are now set to commence in summer 2023 to allow for construction to start in autumn 2023, with an expected 12-month build period. Planning permission is currently being sought for the 2 remaining sites – Daniel Close and Gravelly Crescent. It's hoped that this will be in place by summer 2023.

The new homes will achieve high standards of sustainability. A ‘fabric first’ approach will ensure that the homes will be very well insulated, and they will also be heated by energy-efficient air source heat pumps. Solar panels will be fitted where possible to generate power and help to offset energy bills for future residents.

Hove Station Area Masterplan, Hove

This project sees Brighton & Hove City Council facilitating the redevelopment of the Conway Street Industrial Estate, an 8-and-a-half-acre area on the east side of Hove Station. It's made up of numerous sites in multiple ownerships, including the council and Network Rail, all at varying stages of development.

The overall built environment and public realm are uninspiring and the many underutilised spaces and large areas of surface car parking provide significant transformational opportunities for a vibrant, mixed-use, high-density redevelopment in this inner-urban area of Hove.

The area forms a Strategic Allocation for a minimum of 12,000 sqm of office and business floorspace and 200 residential units within the wider Hove Station Development Area (DA6), as defined in the adopted City Plan Part 1.

The project has now delivered a master plan for the area, in the form of a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), to provide a positive and coherent framework to manage future development and regeneration. The SPD was adopted in September 2021, following Committee approval. The council, Network Rail and Network Rail Infrastructure are continuing to work collaboratively in examining the development potential of the area and the scope for associated land deals to fully realise the masterplan’s aspirations.

Due to changes in Network Rail’s priorities, we're now evaluating alternative options to bring the scheme forward in a way that delivers maximum benefit.

Future of Public Sector office, strategic

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on the way that public sector staff are working – as part of the pandemic response, there's been an acceleration of digital and agile working and a dramatic shift towards homeworking. Many organisations are unlikely to return to “business as usual” and are looking to develop a more blended staff offer, in a way that is a “win/win” for employers and employees.

This project was enabled to allow interested partners to come together to share intelligence, learning and best practices as they consider and develop their new ways of working post-pandemic. It also seeks to identify any ways in which a One Public Estate approach could support the new ways of working, including opportunities for collaboration and/or colocation across the local public sector estate.

The local programme joined forces with its neighbouring Strategic Property Asset Collaboration in East Sussex (SPACES) programme to progress work on this topic, to maximise opportunities to:

• share intelligence, learning and best practice
• make the best use of limited resources
• avoid duplication for organisations operating across both partnership areas

There's also an ongoing collaboration with West Sussex One Public Estate.

A new Joint Working Group (JWG) was established in the summer of 2021, bringing together the 15 participating organisations and other interested parties on a 6-weekly basis. A consultant team was appointed in November 2021 to support the partnerships with the initial mapping and scoping phase and the report was delivered in spring 2022.

As working practices have evolved and following a review of the various programmes looking at ways of working, it's been decided to consolidate current efforts within the Future Ways of Working & Workstyles programmes within Brighton & Hove City Council and maintain the JWG representation with SPACES.

Moulsecoomb Housing and Community Hub

This project is regenerating an underutilised 4-and-a-half-acre site in Mouslecoomb to deliver a £70 million scheme comprising:

• 212 council homes
• a new community hub
• a range of open spaces and outdoor facilities

The new hub will improve the services and facilities available for residents of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, among the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. It will bring together GP and community health services, a pharmacy, Moulsecoomb Library, and adult learning classrooms under one roof, alongside hireable community rooms and a community café. Proposals also include a new centre for youth services within the hub, with a separate entrance.

Basing these organisations in the same building will enable them to work better together and provide residents with a single purpose-built facility from which to access a range of key services.

It also releases a number of sites to build much-needed new affordable homes, which are being delivered by the council’s New Homes for Neighbourhoods Programme and forms part of the council’s package of actions to provide more housing in the city. The proposals are for a mix of 1, 2, 3 and 4-bed homes, as well as several fully accessible homes to meet a range of housing needs. The homes will be let through the council’s Homemove register, which currently has a waiting list of approximately 7,000 households.

The redevelopment will also create new open spaces and outdoor facilities, including a plaza comprising seating and play equipment, pocket parks and small-sided 3G pitches and a skate park, as well as wider public realm improvements.

Following resident consultation from 2020 to 2021, the council has been working with project partners to refine the proposals that now place the hub in the heart of the wider development to improve visibility and accessibility.

In November and December 2021 councillors authorised a budget of £2.1 million to finalise and submit a planning application for the project, which was made in early March 2022. Planning permission was granted in early 2023 and housing-enabling work is scheduled to begin later in 2023. To support the scheme, the council submitted a bid to Homes England (under its Affordable Homes Programme) in February 2022.

The council has appointed a ‘Carbon Review’ consultant to assess and minimise the whole-life carbon impact of the scheme both through construction and the ongoing impact of the new buildings. The review will inform the detailed design to make sure an ambitious but feasible low-carbon scheme is presented at the planning application stage.

The new homes are planned to be highly sustainable including solar panels, ground source heat pumps, renewable heating and electric vehicle charging points. The whole life carbon of homes is being assessed to minimise the impact of these homes over their entire lifespan.

Preston Barracks Primary Care Facility, Brighton

This project sees Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group working with project partners to secure the delivery of a new medical facility as part of the wider Preston Barracks regeneration scheme.

The new medical facility will help to meet the future healthcare need of the area – where population growth is anticipated to be the highest of any area of the city, creating major demand for additional general practice services that are already extremely stretched.

Construction of the new medical facility (as part of the residential development) is now well underway, scheduled for handover in end-July 2022 and immediately followed by an 8-month fit-out programme to allow for occupation in March 2023.

Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group has identified 2 practices to expand into the new medical facility, increasing patient capacity from 11,000 to 16,000 (a 45% increase) which will create broader and better access to health and care for the local community. Both practices provided their formal commitment to occupying the new facility in March 2019. The process of assigning the lease to the practices has commenced, to align with practical completion in October 2023.

Preston Circus Fire Station, Brighton

This project sees East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service refurbishing their busiest Community Fire Station, originally built in 1938, to create modern fit-for-purpose facilities that will include individual sleeping accommodation as well as creating new commercial space to let preferably to public sector partners.

This project is now entering RIBA Stage 3. The intention is to submit the planning application in summer 2022, to allow for construction to begin in winter 2022 for completion in winter 2023. Work continues to identify the future uses for the commercial space, including testing interest with public sector partners.

Patcham Court Farm, Brighton

This project sees Brighton & Hove City Council, the asset owner, facilitating the redevelopment of a vacant 3-and-a-half-acre site formerly part of the wider landholding of Patcham Court but becoming physically divided from its associated farmland in the late 1980s/early 1990s following the development of the A27 bypass. The site has not been developed since that time, despite numerous attempts to bring it forward.

The council is now at an advanced stage of negotiations with its preferred partner, the Royal Mail Group. Royal Mail has undertaken consultation with stakeholders and local residents in advance of submitting a full planning application and has revised the location to the site access to mitigate the impact on the local road network, and on surrounding properties in response to concerns expressed by residents.

Royal Mail has a Planning Performance Agreement in place and has submitted a full planning application.  The planning application is likely to be determined in the first half of 2023. The relocation and consolidation of the existing Royal Mail sorting office services unlocks 2 significant development sites in Brighton and Hove, with the potential to deliver an indicative 177 residential units and 3000 sqm of office space.

The council is currently working with Hyde Housing Association as part of its Homes for Brighton and Hove JV partnership.  The Homes for Brighton & Hove JV team are progressing with initial design and planning pre-app advice on the sites, to make an offer for one of both, which should conclude early in 2023. Once the JV’s acquisition of one or both sites is agreed upon, the council can approve the disposal of PCF to Royal Mail.

Springman House and North Street Quarter Health Hub, Lewes

In 2020, North Street Quarter Ltd announced that it was divesting its interests in the UK and that it would sell its majority share of land at the North Street Quarter (NSQ) to the Lewes-based developer Human Nature. The land sale was completed in February 2021.

Lewes District Council has also agreed to sell its minority share of the NSQ land to the same developer so that it can progress the comprehensive redevelopment of the site.

Human Nature has confirmed that it will submit a new planning application for a different, more sustainable scheme at the NSQ. It's anticipated that proposals for the Springman House site will be available prior to the new NSQ planning application being submitted.

Relocating the fire station from the NSQ to Springman remains the preferred option and Human Nature has been continuing discussions with the council and East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (ESFRS). If this is not viable, however, then the developer will be considering an alternative enabling role for Springman.

The developer and its architect have also been working closely with the GPs, Clinical Commissioning Group and dentist to review the detailed plans for the previously agreed Health Hub in the context of the new, emerging masterplan for the site. This has also provided an opportunity for health partners to review their requirements in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This work is progressing well, and Human Nature is on track to have an agreed set of Health Hub plans for inclusion in its new NSQ planning application.

Human Nature has submitted a comprehensive planning application that includes a significantly increased number of housing outputs of 416 units. A decision is due in the autumn of 2023.

Burgess Hill Station

This project seeks to regenerate a 9-acre site in and around Burgess Hill railway station, encompassing the current train station, former sidings and station yard, station car park, adjacent car park (Queens Crescent) and recreation area and playground. The land parcels are in the ownership of both the council and Network Rail, with a portion of the Network Rail ownership let to The Arch Company on a 150-year lease.

The station opened in 1841, as part of the development of the Brighton Mainline. The main station building dates to 1877 and is outdated with poor accessibility. 

The wider redevelopment area is largely unappealing, makes inefficient use of public sector land and performs poorly as both a gateway to the town and as a public transport interchange.

This project aims to comprehensively redevelop the brownfield site, to deliver:

• up to 300 new homes
• ancillary commercial space
• enhanced and accessible station infrastructure
• public realm improvements

The intention is to maintain the current levels of parking, through the provision of a new multi-storey facility, and to re-provide recreation and play space. The scheme would create clearly defined, safer, high-quality public spaces in a way that respects the area’s historic character. The project would bring wider economic benefits, complementing the regeneration and growth of the town centre and nearby Northern Arc development.

Specialist property and design advisors were commissioned in late-2019 to prepare a mixed-used development scheme and programme for the combined property assets.

A preferred scheme was identified, supported by due diligence work on legal title, as well as topographical, environmental and tree surveys, and a detailed development appraisal completed in the summer of 2020. This demonstrated the site’s physical capacity for a major mixed-use regeneration scheme but found only marginal financial viability.

The COVID-19 pandemic created major and potentially long-term impacts on rail passenger usage and associated income from station car parks (due to changes in working and travelling behaviour and practices), on the residential property market, and on construction costs. This, coupled with the marginal financial viability of the preferred scheme, created the need for project partners to revisit feasibility and viability.

The project was awarded One Public Estate “top-up” funding in March 2021, enabling the consultant team to be reengaged to undertake this work. The council and Network Rail signed a Memorandum of Understanding in April 2021, agreeing to collaborate on all aspects of project planning and delivery and demonstrating continued commitment to this joint endeavour.

The consultant team delivered its draft report in November 2021.  This contains 4 four options, all of which face viability challenges. Project partners are currently considering the options and exploring the opportunities to “plug” the viability gap. 

A more comprehensive cost analysis will be undertaken, which will include a review of the car park element in spring 2022. Homes England is being engaged and potential future funding discussed.

The site has also been promoted as a development allocation in the emerging Mid Sussex Local Plan Review. This passed the Regulation 18 stage in December 2022 and the site allocation will be included in the Regulation 19 consultation in summer/autumn 2023. The allocation seeks to deliver up to 300 residential units as part of a mixed-use development.

The project has also examined the potential to utilise the part of the site which is currently used for allotments.  A study has been commissioned by the council to help identify alternative locations within the town for the allotments.

Depending on the outcome of this work and providing that land assembly can be achieved, the intention is to achieve scheme and business case sign-off by all project partners in summer 2023.

Detailed design, consultation and planning are forecast for early 2024, allowing for construction to start later in the year. The stakeholders have also examined the potential to bid for Brownfield Land Release Funding with a plan to bid in 2024.

Public sector partners working together to take a more strategic approach to asset management has demonstrable benefits, in terms of supporting the region’s economic, social, and environmental productivity priorities.

The local programme will continue to facilitate such collaboration by:

• supporting the progression of the existing project portfolio, through to the successful completion
• building knowledge of partners’ and government departments’ new and emerging asset management strategies, wherever possible supporting plans and identifying opportunities
• maintaining existing and building new relationships within and beyond the partnership, to identify new collaboration possibilities – including exploring the potential for more strategic projects and/or activities
• identifying a pipeline of future projects and bidding for new funding, as and when calls open
• keeping abreast of wider initiatives and activities impacting asset management, use and the built environment – ranging from Circular Economy to Social Value and the Integrated Care Partnership – and fostering learning and links across the partnership to support the implementation