Team Working Directly With Landowners To Meet Regional Housing Needs Since unveiling plans to extend its services to landowners across the North of England, Keyland Developments, the sister company to Yorkshire Water and a subsidiary of the Kelda Group, has announced that it has entered into its first two
The UK’s leading vacant property and security specialist, VPS and their sister company VPS Site Security, have uniquely been shortlisted in two categories this year for Security Excellence honours, following on from their selection for the British Construction Industry Awards. “We’re delighted to have won through to the SecurityEx finals
Award-winning sales intelligence software supplier, sales-i has joined forces with the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF), the UK’s leading trade organisation that represents merchants and suppliers across the building and construction industry. The BMF, which has over 500 members ranging from small companies to national organisations, is also the primary provider
Buildbase has donated a range of timber from beautiful birch plywood to sturdy timber joists, providing a key feature for “A New House for London” designed by Arup, Carl Turner Architects and The Building Centre. As part of the London Design Festival 2015, a prefabricated, portable home has been constructed
Portfolio of 13 logistics warehouses totalling 2 million SF (190,000 sq m) acquired IDI Gazeley (Brookfield Logistics Properties), a leading global investor and developer of logistics warehouses and distribution parks, has today confirmed the acquisition of a portfolio of 13 logistics warehouses in the Netherlands totalling more than 2 million
Team Working Directly With Landowners To Meet Regional Housing Needs Since unveiling plans to extend its services to landowners across the North of England, Keyland Developments, the sister company to Yorkshire Water and a subsidiary of the Kelda Group, has announced that it has entered into its first two agreements, which are set to make a significant contribution to West Yorkshire’s housing needs. Keyland has been regenerating Yorkshire Water’s redundant sites for over 20 years and has built an unrivalled reputation on its core strength of resolving highly complex development issues to maximise the value of brownfield and greenfield sites. Recognising the contribution the Company could make to unlocking the regional land supply, Keyland took the decision to offer its services to other landowners in the North of England. The Planning Promotional Agreements (PPA’s) involve Keyland working with independent landowners, corporates or regulated bodies to overcome obstacles to development on strategic sites in order to facilitate regeneration by securing planning consent for future use. Since announcing its new direction at the end of last year, the team has been exploring a range of commercial and residential opportunities. Keyland’s first PPA’s have just been agreed and involve two separate sites in West Yorkshire, which have a combined 21 acres of land identified by Keyland as prime for residential allocation. The sites could bring about the development of some 240 new homes. Project teams of professionals are now being assembled to work closely with the Local Planning Authorities in securing housing allocations, with a view to the sites being brought to market in 2019. Peter Garrett, Managing Director of Keyland Developments Ltd, said; “There are a significant number of strategic sites across the Yorkshire region that haven’t fulfilled their potential, often due to the complexities of the planning system, title issues, or problems with access or ground conditions, which can all create barriers to development. “Many of the region’s local authorities are facing severe long-term housing shortages as supply is simply not meeting the growing demand. The new agreements we have entered into in West Yorkshire will enable the landowners to derive the maximum potential from their sites with no financial risk, whilst unlocking much-needed land to assist the local authorities in meeting their long-term housing needs.” Keyland is a major landowner in its own right with an active development pipeline. The team owns some 1100 acres outright with a further 900 acres in Joint Venture partnerships, as well as a residential development pipeline of over 6000 units and over 6m sq ft of pipeline commercial space. The team recently assembled a project team to prepare a planning application for a new employment scheme on its 53 acre Wakefield East site which could incorporate some 700,000 sq ft of employment space and bring about the creation of some 1400 new jobs.
The UK’s leading vacant property and security specialist, VPS and their sister company VPS Site Security, have uniquely been shortlisted in two categories this year for Security Excellence honours, following on from their selection for the British Construction Industry Awards. “We’re delighted to have won through to the SecurityEx finals twice over.” Says Anthony Owen, Managing Director of VPS. “VPS Site Security is shortlisted for Security Project of the Year, for its innovative design combining the latest technologies with mobile patrols to protect a Costain highways construction project in South Wales.” “VPS itself is in the Large Security Installer category, with an entry that included securing 51 CityLink depots stretching from Aberdeen to Southampton, all on New Year’s Eve. I’m very proud that our staff’s expertise and hard work continues to gain recognition, and ensures VPS remains the leader in the field by a country mile. No other specialist in our sector has been shortlisted once, let alone twice.” In their seventeenth year, the Security Excellence Awards have consistently broken new ground in highlighting the very best people, projects and processes the UK’s security sector has to offer. The high calibre Judging Panel – including representatives from all areas of security & fire, the world of academia and the policing sector – will determine this year’s Winners, who will be announced at the Awards ceremony at the London Hilton on Park Lane on November 25th. Last week, VPS Site Security issued a case study on the £150 million Costain construction site along 14 kilometres of highway. The ‘Heads of Valleys’ road in South Wales is undergoing major improvements. It presents significant engineering and environmental challenges for safe traffic management and the protection of equipment. VPS Site Security developed an innovative connectivity network, using wireless fluid-mesh communications linking 18 of its award-winning JCB Smart Towers®, supported by a mobile monitoring station. It provides not only early alerts to traffic flow problems – allowing any vehicle breakdown to be responded to immediately – but also protects the materials and equipment along the site. Last New Year’s Eve, administrators Ernst and Young (EY) called VPS after a major parcel courier company collapsed, leaving unprotected 1.6 million square feet of space, over 30,000 undelivered parcels and 51 depots around the UK. VPS secured and alarmed the City Link depots within 24 hours of receiving the instruction from EY. Earlier this year, VPS Site Security was also shortlisted for the British Construction Industry Awards for product Innovation for the Building sector.
Award-winning sales intelligence software supplier, sales-i has joined forces with the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF), the UK’s leading trade organisation that represents merchants and suppliers across the building and construction industry. The BMF, which has over 500 members ranging from small companies to national organisations, is also the primary provider of specialist training for all employees covering apprenticeships, product and selling skills, and managerial development. John Newcomb, Managing Director of the BMF said, “I am pleased to welcome sales-i into BMF membership. It’s reassuring to see a number of our BMF members are already using their sales intelligence software and hopefully through their membership of the BMF these numbers will continue to grow”. Paul Black, CEO of sales-i, comments: “The BMF is dedicated to supporting businesses across the building and construction industry and so are we. We created sales-i to help suppliers sell smarter, to improve sales performance through sales intelligence, and better compete – we’re delighted to partner with the BMF and very much look forward to helping more of its members do the same!” Founded in 2008, sales-i has become the leading supplier of sales intelligence software to the building and construction industry both in the UK and North America. It has already helped thousands of customers realise greater visibility of sales, margins, and profitability, enabling them to respond faster to every sales opportunity and sell more. Existing BMF members using sales-i include Howarth Timber, TIMco, International Timber, Rawlplug, and FlexSeal. National Sales Manager of Howarth Timber, Mark Terry has been an advocate of sales-i for over 6 years. He says: “sales-i has had a real impact on our sales business. sales-i enables me to manage my external team efficiently, it gives me both positive and negative sales information which I can react upon & action accordingly.”
Buildbase has donated a range of timber from beautiful birch plywood to sturdy timber joists, providing a key feature for “A New House for London” designed by Arup, Carl Turner Architects and The Building Centre. As part of the London Design Festival 2015, a prefabricated, portable home has been constructed to illustrate a fresh approach to the housing shortage. Built from two specially adapted shipping containers, the new prototype challenges land-use thinking; presenting a model for how under-utilised brownfield sites could be used to locate prefabricated, adaptable spaces, suitable for modern urban living. The cost of this new home is just 10% of the average London property. Buildbase worked with its supplier network, including BSW, Metsa Wood, L&G and Altripan, to meet a tight building schedule and donate a wide range of timber for use throughout the project, from studwork and roofing to cladding and interiors. Inside “A New House for London” birch plywood was incorporated to give a stunning effect throughout with use in kitchen and bathroom units, beds and tables. Outside landscaping called on softwood materials with decking supplied as well as timber for a vegetable patch, tool storage box and planters. Softwood was also used in the cladding along with Western Red Cedar slats. The timber donated was guaranteed sustainable with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. It was supplied to meet the nearest specification to reduce time and workload on-site. Neil Woods, Category Director for Timber at Buildbase said: “Timber is a perfect material for affordable housing. Timber cladding is much more cost effective compared with alternative materials such as glass, metal or plastic. It’s also easily available and can be used throughout a build. In fact, the more you build with it, the more you capture embodied carbon within a building’s structure. The effect carbon has on our environment is hugely important and using timber can significantly reduce your building’s carbon footprint. With high thermal properties, timber is energy-efficient too, so the cost-savings continue once the house becomes a home.” Taylor Steel at Carl Turner Architects said: “A New House For London required a wide range of timber products for internal fit-out and cladding. We turned to Buildbase to supply everything from basic timber studwork to sheets of beautiful birch plywood. The main issue for us was sourcing timber of our exact specification, but we were able to work with Buildbase to overcome these initial concerns. We are particularly delighted with the outcome of the birch plywood interiors.” A New House for London is located outside The Building Centre and is supported by an exhibition that explains the innovations and demonstrates an alternative approach to development for the use of the shipping containers as a house. It is open to the public until Saturday 17th October 2015. http://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/anewhouse
Portfolio of 13 logistics warehouses totalling 2 million SF (190,000 sq m) acquired IDI Gazeley (Brookfield Logistics Properties), a leading global investor and developer of logistics warehouses and distribution parks, has today confirmed the acquisition of a portfolio of 13 logistics warehouses in the Netherlands totalling more than 2 million SF (190,000 SQ M). The deal represents IDI Gazeley’s first investment in the Netherlands and is intended to form the core of a growing logistics platform in the country. The portfolio was acquired from Eurindustrial N.V., a Dutch real estate fund, and includes 13 properties spread across the major logistics hotspots in the Netherlands including Amsterdam, Venlo, and Venray. The individual buildings range in size up to 310,000 SF (29,000 SQ M). The assets within the portfolio have a high occupancy rate and are currently leased to a variety of leading logistics and distribution companies many of whom are already part of IDI Gazeley’s growing customer community, including UPS, Syncreon, Canon, and ND Logistics. This transaction is the third major portfolio acquisition completed in the last 12 months. The total number of assets owned and managed by IDI Gazeley in Europe and China today stands at 13,440 million SF (1,249 million SQ M) with the company now present in seven countries in Europe. Speaking about the announcement Chief Acquisitions Officer Nick Cook said “This major portfolio acquisition gives us a great platform from which to build our presence in the Netherlands and increases our assets under management considerably. Notably this transaction demonstrates our ability to develop a scale operation quickly in new geographies from which we will serve both existing and new customers.” Jan Brouns CEO, speaking for Eurindustrial N.V., commented “The portfolio that IDI Gazeley has acquired is of good quality, with modern assets situated in, and around, key transport hubs in the Netherlands. IDI Gazeley’s professionalism through this whole process has helped to ensure a very smooth transaction.” IDI Gazeley were advised by DTZ Zadelhoff. Legal advice was provided by DLA Piper, whilst Tauw and ChandlerKBS provided environmental and technical advice respectively to the Buyer. Eurindustrial were advised by CBRE, legal advice was provided by Houthoff, tax advice by Deloitte, while CVO provided technical support to Eurindustrial. IDI Gazeley IDI Gazeley (Brookfield Logistics Properties) is one of the world’s leading investors and developers of logistics warehouses and distribution parks with 57 million square feet of premier assets under management and additional prime land sites to develop another 50 million square feet of distribution facilities near major markets and transport routes in North America, Europe and China. As part of Brookfield Property Partners, we belong to one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated owners, operators and investors in real estate. For more information, please visit our website at www.brookfieldlogisticsproperties.com
