Southwark Council has released its freehold and leasehold interest in Bermondsey’s Dockley Road Business Park to the University of Oxford, so that a development scheme can proceed.
The proposed development, part of the Bermondsey Spa regeneration, will provide 59 residences with 190 habitable rooms, 66 of which will be affordable.
Overall the Bermondsey Spa project will see more than 2,000 new homes with more than 40 per cent affordable housing, sixteen GP surgery places in two new health centres as well as two and a half hectares of open space.
The latest phases of the regeneration of Bermondsey Spa started in March 2010, and will see three existing 1950s blocks demolished and the sites overlooking Jamaica Road re-developed with new affordable housing and commercial premises.
The existing business park was built in the late 1970s and funded by the Wardens and Fellows of Nuffield College of the University of Oxford, with Southwark Council providing an annual financial return.
This was secured when the council granted a 99 year lease from 1978 at a rent of £1 each year, in return Nuffield paid the council a premium that covered the cost of constructing the Park.
Nuffield then granted the council an under-lease for 99 years at a rent of 75 per cent of the full rental value of the Business Park, which was effectively Nuffield’s return on its investment.