Partnership is the key ingredient for a sweet success
One of the most rewarding parts of my job is taking the time to see our sites and meet our partners and customers
I recently visited the newly completed SEGRO Park Hayes scheme in West London. On acquiring the 30-acre site of the iconic former Nestlé chocolate factory in 2015, we set about developing one of our most ambitious schemes in our London portfolio, meeting the challenge of creating a landmark scheme which fits the needs of the local community, while respecting the history and heritage of the site.
Jobs and homes are the cornerstones of any community, so in partnership with Barratt London we created London’s only industrial / residential co-location scheme of its kind, delivering over 1,300 new homes alongside the high quality sustainable industrial park.
The first thing to catch your eye on entering the development is the art deco frontage of the former factory, complete with its floor to ceiling windows which have been carefully preserved.
Moving on and walking down a canal and a tree-lined pathway with outdoor gym facilities is not what you would expect at a typical urban industrial and logistics facility … but SEGRO Park Hayes is by no means a typical urban industrial and logistics facility. It is one of SEGRO’s first carbon neutral developments and we’re hugely proud of our BREAAM Outstanding and A+ EPC ratings.
It was great to have the opportunity to meet a long standing SEGRO customer, Transglobal Express, an international courier and air and sea freight company, which has recently upsized workspace from one of our assets in Heathrow, to SEGRO Park Hayes.
While proximity to Heathrow is clearly a decisive factor for such a company, it is the scale, quality of workspace they now have to operate in and the growth opportunities it enables which are the real game-changers.
Even though they are back-to-back, the site has been carefully designed to ensure that the houses and industrial operations have a minimal interface between them. It only takes a couple of minutes to walk from the warehouses to the new high-quality residential units where I met @CraigCarson from Barratt London.
What an incredible job they have done in delivering 1,300 new homes in a contemporary environment while maintaining the character of the site’s history. Craig tells me the demand for the one and two bedroom units has been exceptional, with all the current accommodation sold, and work well underway on the final phase of the scheme.
Looking around the accommodation, there are many features of the existing factory. The recently restored memorial to the fallen servicemen and women from the Second World War who worked at the factory, and a planned museum of artefacts in the main reception provides a further tangible connection to the site’s heritage and aligns with the principles of our Responsible SEGRO commitments to invest in the local community.
I was also pleased to have the opportunity to speak with the Deputy Mayor of London, @JulesPipe, who has been incredibly supportive of the scheme. For him, the delivery of much needed housing alongside new industrial space and the regeneration of a brownfield site to make the absolute most of the land available in a carefully planned and considerate way is the perfect example of one of the objectives the Mayor’s London Plan is trying to achieve. He certainly believes this is an exemplar scheme and we would certainly relish the opportunity to embark on a similar project in the future.
We have always been confident that developments such as SEGRO Park Hayes delivered through a strong partnership approach are a key part of London’s future. What better way of demonstrating this than having a fully occupied residential development providing new homes for people and an (almost) full almost 240,000 sq ft industrial facility providing workspace for businesses.