Following a national tender, our professionals have successfully secured a development partner on behalf of Homes England, for a prominent brownfield site in Fareham town centre.

The brownfield site, which extends to approximately 0.22 hectares (0.54 acres), included a now redundant Magistrates Court, that measured approximately 2,736 sqm and was subject to an outline planning application, submitted by Homes England, for a residential development of 45 apartments.

An initial ‘soft market testing’ exercise was undertaken to a select number of parties on an off-market basis. The testing was designed to evaluate the appetite for the scheme and inform the formal marketing exercise once planning consent was granted. However, due to the ongoing nitrates issue affecting the Solent, which is currently preventing local authorities issuing planning consents, the marketing strategy had to be revised so that offers were subject to a resolution being in place prior to completion. Despite the uncertainty, the marketing yielded several strong financial proposals from a variety of parties including affordable housing providers, residential developers and retirement operators.

Following the marketing completion, our professionals assessed each of the individual submissions, which resulted in providing a recommendation to the client of Churchill Retirement Living.

After a detailed legal contract negotiation, a conditional sale was agreed. This included an overage provision designed to capture any enhanced value achieved following additional planning consent submitted post-completion. A Reserved Matters application for a scheme comprising a minimum of 35 retirement apartments and associated parking will be submitted shortly by Churchill Retirement Living.

For further information, please contact a member of our team:

Ryan Harris
Associate Partner
01962 833376