Investment in Lancaster Retail Regeneration

RNS Number : 2630S

British Land Co PLC

29 November 2012

 



British Land Invests in Lancaster Retail Regeneration

British Land announces it has acquired the 2.3 acre Canal Corridor North site in Lancaster city centre.  The land includes the former Mitchell's of Lancaster brewery.

A development agreement is also in place with Lancaster City Council for the acquisition of its adjoining land to enable the delivery of a significant canal-side, mixed-use scheme across a 10 acre site. 

Bound to the east by the Lancaster Canal and with two working theatres, the site, which is next to the city centre, provides the only real opportunity to significantly improve the city's retail offer.

Richard Wise, Head of Retail Development for British Land, said: "Working closely with Lancaster City Council and English Heritage, our aim is to deliver a scheme that complements the site's historical setting.  Lancaster has seen very little retail investment over the last two decades and we look forward to creating a retail and leisure destination to serve local people and attract significant numbers of visitors into the city.

"We are confident that a relatively modest initial investment could lead to a future development with a targeted end value of over £75 million."

British Land is continuing to assemble a pipeline of retail projects to develop in the future.  Its current retail pipeline includes: the recently announced £90 million forward funding of the Old Market scheme in Hereford city centre; the extension and refurbishment of Surrey Quays Shopping Centre in Canada Water; and extensions at Fort Kinnaird in Edinburgh and Broughton Shopping Park in Chester.  British Land and USS are also appraising opportunities to extend and enhance Eden Walk Shopping Centre in Kingston which British Land acquired a 50% share in during July.

Retail development projects already underway include: the new build 320,000 sq ft Whiteley Shopping Centre in Hampshire which is already nearly 80% pre-let and under offer and opens in spring 2013; and a 45,000 sq ft leisure extension to Glasgow Fort Shopping Park, due for completion in summer 2013 which is fully pre-let.

ENDS

Enquiries:

Investor Relations

Sally Jones, British Land                                                            020 7467 2942

Media

Jackie Whitaker, British Land                                                      020 7467 3449

Emma Hammond, FTI Consulting                                               020 7269 9347

Pip Wood, British Land                                                                020 7467 2942

Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group                                               020 7251 3801

Notes to Editors

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £16.3 billion (British Land share £10.4 billion), as valued at 30 September 2012. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and visited by over 300 million people each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our occupancy rate of 97.3% and average lease length to first break of 11.1 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 60% of our portfolio with around 28 million sq ft of retail space across 82 retail parks, 92 superstores, 13 shopping centres and 9 department stores. The retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats and our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers. 80% of our retail parks have open A1 consent.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 35% of the portfolio (which will rise to an estimated 40% on completion of current developments). Our 7 million sq ft of high quality offices includes Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. Over the last 2 years, we have committed £1.2 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.3 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Managing our environmental, economic and social impacts is central to the way we do business and deliver value for our shareholders. We assess the issues that matter most to us and our stakeholders on an on-going basis and, where appropriate, adjust our strategic focus to reflect this. We focus on managing our buildings efficiently, supporting communities, developing sustainable buildings and engaging our staff. For each of these priorities we are targeting our efforts and resources at initiatives where we can achieve the biggest impacts.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

 

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