CD141 - Expert Support from TfL and Savills in the areas of property, land assembly and viability

Western Lands: Background and delegation

In January 2020, the Board approved OPDC's revised delivery approach, which included the following key elements:

• a new focus to the regeneration of the area, taking a comprehensive view of the 'Western Land' along Old Oak Common Lane, Old Oak Land and Victoria Road where key sites are owned by Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail;
• developing an evidence based of the benefit of a comprehensive and coordinated approach to land, development and infrastructure funding to optimise the strategic opportunities that the area offers;
• securing the support of major partners including public sector landowners and funders; and
• developing an engagement plan to ensure local and future communities in the area can influence the development and delivery of this major opportunity for London.

In October 2020 the Board reviewed the progress of the Western Lands programme and approved the basis for the next stage of landowners and community engagement. The Board also approved a delegation to Officers, which, together with prior delegations from the Board, means senior officers have delegated authority to commit, via decision forms, the totality of OPDC's budget for Western Lands preparatory work in 2020/21 (£440,000). The approvals being sought for support from TfL Operational Property and Savills through this form are in line with the delegation of this budget.

Western Lands: Support from TfL Operational Property and Savills

Since January 2020, OPDC officers have engaged with key stakeholders including Network Rail, HS2 and the boroughs to begin the process of securing the support of the major partners to the development of the strategy for Western Land. OPDC have also engaged with Central Government via the Ministry for Homes, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Homes England (HE) and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to discuss potential funding opportunities.

OPDC officers have shared an initial analysis of the regeneration potential with the above partners and stakeholders, with a view to demonstrating that pooling public sector land and leveraging public sector investment can optimise development outcomes across the whole area. The initial review if this work has triggered several follow-up questions, many of which are technical in nature and require further work to provide either assurance or validation of certain assumptions and variables underpinning the analysis.

The questions have focussed on the following broad areas:

• infrastructure - providing greater certainty on cost and deliverability;
• land - providing greater understanding of the land that might be required to deliver infrastructure and public realm improvements; and
• viability and deliverability - providing greater certainty on funding requirements over time.

Specialist input from property surveyors and professionals within TfL's Operational Property team is required to deal with the land and property elements of the queries above. This input will inform the ongoing development and analysis of land assembly and development strategy opportunities and risks, including the use of OPDC's powers and opportunities to enter into land pool agreements between major landowners, among others.

OPDC has previously received input from TfL's specialist land assembly experts within Operational Property, including in support of the development of its previous Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) proposals. While there was a Board approval in March 2019 for spend of £650,000 on commercial support on land assembly and compulsory purchase order work - including strategy, property cost estimates, negotiation support and representation at enquiry - this form is providing clarity there is approval of historic spend of £37,675 incurred prior to March 2019.

OPDC intends to use Savills to run additional sensitivities on the existing Western Lands viability model to help determine development viability and to identify funding gaps that OPDC need to address through its Western Lands funding strategy. The sensitivities to be tested include th infrastructure costs funded by the development and different levels of affordable housing and associated grant. The sensitivities will also test the impact of different benchmark land values on the viability of development.

OPDC competitively procured Savills via the HCA Technical Advisory framework as its strategic property advisor. OPDC has a call-off contract in place, for the period January 2019 to June 2022. Savills were previously appointed to review development capacity in the Western Land area (CD133) and assess the viability of the Channel Gate site in support of OPDC's conversations with stakeholders as noted above. This additional work is within the scope of this existing appointment.

Harlesden Canalside

Following the award of £1.2 million capital funding from the Mayor of London's Good Growth Fund round 2, OPDC is working to deliver capital projects along the Grand Union Canal. In February 2020, the OPDC Delivery team gained approval to deliver the first phase of the Harlesden Canalside project (CD128). This included approval to procure and appoint a meanwhile operator, a landscape designer and a design consultant for the development of an operating model and a design brief, and the detailed design development of community workshop spaces, landscape improvements and public realm improvements at Harlesden Canalside.

OPDC has now appointed 3Space Limited as the meanwhile operators who will lead the project in partnership with architects, We Made That (who were appointed via a separate procurement exercise and approved under decision CD128. 3Space Limited have been procured to deliver:

• a series of workshop spaces with a provisional aim of providing space and infrastructure for an open -access boaters' and cycle repair workshop, and a community making and fixing workshop; and
• landscape and public realm improvements needed to implement the workshop spaces, and to increase safety along the canal, mitigate user conflicts, and demonstrate good placemaking along the canal.

The land is owned by the London Borough of Brent and therefore the project will require various licenses and leases to be granted by the Brent to allow for access to the site for events and activities, undertake construction activities and/or to lease and sub-lease the space.

Surveying input is required from the TfL Operational Property team to finalise the lease agreements required to deliver the project. Expenditure will be accounted for from the Good Growth Fund budget.

Other Early Activation and Park Royal land and property input

OPDC is delivering a range of immediate projects and planned improvements within its area. This included improvements to other parts of the canal, the delivery of its Employment and Skills Hub will premises owned and managed by West London College.

OPDC is also at the earlier formulation stage of projects that are aligned with its regeneration objectives and may require it to consider taking an interest in land as part delivering those projects. This decisions approves OPDC commissioning TfL Operational Property to provide this input as required on an ad-hoc basis.

Expenditure will be funded from those programme's budgets within the limit set out in this decision (£10,000 as set out below).

The support of TfL Operational Property team with the Western Land workstream will help develop the delivery strategy, business case and support discussion with potential funders and partners to support OPDC's pursuit of opportunities to directly deliver or unlock delivery by others of homes, jobs and overall regeneration of the Old Oak and Park Royal opportunity area in line with the Mayor's aspirations as set out in the Local Plan and London Plan. The direct support may include advice relating to land assembly, the acquisition of land, land pooling and the use of OPDC's powers relating to land.

The support from TfL of the Harlesden Canalside project will allow OPDC to manage all occupation and rights issues including taking control of the site from the London Borough of Brent, securing any temporary rights required for construction delivery and grant appropriate rights to the procured operator for the duration of its appointment.

The objectives of input into other projects at a formulation stage will ensure that any land and property considerations and costs are considered at the right stage of developing projects.

The outcome of the Savills viability commission will be a short report detailing the residual land values and viability gap of a range of scenarios testing the impact of infrastructure costs, affordable any additional funding required for infrastructure delivery to bring forward the required development.

Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), OPDC must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act; and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

Further work for Western Lands will be subject to equalities assessments at the appropriate time. However, this initial feasibility work is not anticipated to have any equalities impacts as this work is part of the initial stage of this project and such work will not make any recommendations for actions which might give rise to equality impacts; however, this will be kept under review.

This work supports (in part) OPDC's Western Lands strategy which is still a a development stage and has not secured community, full stakeholder

The risk of not securing this resource in a timely manner could impact on the delivery team workstreams and ability to progress discussion and agreements with potential funders and delivery partners.

OPDC's Harlesden Canalside project is subject to a Good Growth Fund grant. Failure to secure the necessary interests would prevent OPDC delivering its grants objectives.

Expenditure for the activities stated in this report can be contained within the existing budget. The Development Director must ensure effective project monitoring is in place to prevent overspending against the budget. Further expenditure is subject to the Corporation's decision making process.

The report above indicates that the decision requested falls with OPDC's objective of securing the regeneration of the Old Oak and Park Royal area and its powers to do anything it considers appropriate for the purpose of its objects or purposes incidental to those purposes, as set out in the Localism Act 2011.

In taking the decisions requested, the CEO must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the CEO should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

Officers have indicated in paragraph 1.9 of this report that the framework under which it is proposed the services required were "called-off" in accordance with relevant procurement law; and the services required have been procured fully in accordance with the requirements of that framework.