The facts
Location: Slough Town Centre,
Berkshire
Client: HCA (formerly English Partnerships)
working in conjunction with Development Securities, Slough Borough
Council and Berkeley Homes
Start Date: October 2007
Completion Date: August 2008
Project Value: £400m
Services provided: Project Management,
Regeneration and Development Management
Capita Symonds contacts: Tom Moore -
Director of Regeneration and Development, Laura Smeaton - Project
Manager
The project
The Heart of Slough project is a high profile
development that will create a minimum of 700 new jobs, provide a
significant number of new homes and commercial space and act as a
catalyst for further investment in the town.
The Heart of Slough was initiated by Slough Borough Council
(SBC) in 2001 to regenerate the centre of Slough and SBC selected
Berkeley Homes and Development Securities as their preferred
development partners the same year. Berkeley Homes, Development
Securities and Slough Borough Council all have responsibilities for
delivering their sections of the development and English
Partnerships has been involved in the project since early 2004
after securing approval to invest £17.52 million (gross) in the
project.
The Heart of Slough proposals create a new mixed-use destination
for the town with offices, hotels, shops, restaurants, apartments,
a library, University and bus station. It will change perceptions
of living and working in the town centre, creating a critical mass
of new housing and office space close to improved public transport
facilities and an enhanced town centre. Prominent locations and
high quality buildings for the new library and Thames Valley
University will create a civic gateway to Slough, with high quality
public spaces and an improved setting for St Ethelbert’s
church.
At the heart of the proposals is a radical redesign of the
highway infrastructure and an enhanced public realm which will
‘humanise’ the A4, improve facilities for pedestrians, cyclists and
buses, create an ‘address street’ for new businesses and ensure the
Heart of Slough functions as a natural extension of the town
centre.
Capita Symonds was appointed as Project Manager to assist the
development partners and their consultant teams to secure an
outline planning application for the entire project and a detailed
planning consent for the remodelled highways works. However each
development partner had appointed their own architect and each is
working to a different development timetable.
Our role was to coordinate the submission of an Outline Planning
Application for the Heart of Slough which involved:
- Project Coordination
- Preparing Project Programmes
- Monitoring Project Progress
- Liaison with Local Planning Authority
- Coordinating Public Consultation
- Formulation of Procurement Strategy
- Formulation of Implementation Strategy to be used within
Environmental Impact Assessment
- Preparation of tender documentation for the selection of
Highways Works Contractor using the OJEU procurement rules
We co-ordinated and oversaw the information required from each
of the Principals and their consultants for the application, and
developed a high level co-ordinated programme and strategy for the
implementation of the entire development. We worked closely
with the project team and liaised regularly with the local planning
authority to ensure the planning application would be validated and
registered once submitted. We also assisted English Partnership’s
PR Consultants with the preparation of a public consultation event
which was held in Slough to inform the public of the proposals that
were being brought forward.
As the project advanced Capita Symonds were also asked to
undertake a number of discrete pieces of work for this project and
these included formulating a procurement and implementation
strategy for delivering the development and we were also asked to
prepare the tender documentation in line with our recommendations
to appoint a highways works contractor.
The outline planning application was submitted to Slough Borough
Council in July 2008.