Brent Cross Town
CLIENT CONTEXT
Brent Cross Town is a new settlement which will, once completed, have over 6,000 homes, extensive community and social spaces, extensive areas of public parks and active play facilities, a new railway station and a cluster of approximately 2 million square feet of offices and workspace. As is typical in such large, complex regeneration programmes, land, infrastructure, masterplanning, funding and commercial arrangements are tightly interdependent. The Start Advisory team supported the delivery of this Joint Venture from the earliest period of the project when most of the company leadership were still working for the developer. From then until now, the team has been involved in the masterplanning, funding and contracting workstreams as well as taking a lead role in land acquisitions and the development of the new railway station.
PROCESS
Our advice focused on the commercial constraints that most often delay or destabilise large schemes: land control, development sequencing and risk, partner support and engagement and contract structures. We advised on masterplan sequencing to improve efficiency and cashflow and led negotiations to secure remaining land interests required to bring the scheme forward. This included dealing with historic title constraints and supporting the use of compulsory purchase powers where necessary.
As the scheme evolved, we supported the client in renegotiating key commercial arrangements underpinning the wider regeneration, addressing interdependencies between Brent Cross Town, the shopping centre (Brent Cross North) and the new railway station (Brent Cross West). We also represented the commercial interests of the Joint Venture on rail related interfaces, including negotiations with Network Rail, where decision pathways are complex and the consequences of failure would have been material to the whole project.
Our role has been to support the team, grounded in the commercial and strategic needs of the Joint Venture and ultimately informed by the real challenges of delivery and not simply the theoretical. We focused on costs, plot and use sequencing, land control and contractual leverage as the primary drivers of viability. Working under the guidance of the Argent partners, we used these to inform negotiations and delivery decisions as conditions changed. Our role continues as we bring the combined experience of our own leadership team to new challenges in the project and provide the safe pair of hands on which our clients rely.
Combined, these improved the scheme’s ability to proceed on a more secure footing.
RESULTS
Our interventions reduced delivery risk by
securing all the land needed to deliver the bulk of the scheme in advance of major investment in early phase works,
working through complex contractual renegotiations, we helped to decouple Brent Cross Town from the other elements of the wider scheme, increasing independence and control for the Joint Venture while reducing costs and obligations at the same time, and
collaborated with other stakeholders to ensure that the interests of Brent Cross Town were heard and its priorities protected.
“As part of the Brent Cross Joint Venture team from its early days, Ruairidh was trusted with securing the land needed to develop Brent Cross Town in cooperation with our JV Partner, London Borough of Barnet. He achieved what was one of the most complicated and essential elements of the project successfully, on time and under budget and with a calmness that gave everyone confidence that the required work would be done. His additional input supporting the contractual renegotiations with other parties and acting as the JV’s representative in delivery the new railway station were similarly valuable and impactful. We were happy to support Ruairidh and the new Start Advisory team when they began their business in 2018, and we continue to consider them key advisors on the project to this day.”
– André Gibbs, Executive Director, Related Argent
