Ambition for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc…

amount of commercial floor space across the region would need to increase by more than 50%. The Arc’s largest cities would each require millions of square feet of new office space.

Unlocking growth

The new east-west road and rail links will to help drive economic growth, as well as unlocking new locations for residential and commercial property development. Thousands of workers will be put within easier reach of high quality jobs such as those found on the region’s science parks.

Locations that are currently poorly connected will become commutable, increasing their viability for new development. New or upgraded train stations and key road junctions will act as beacons for developers.

Future hotspots

Oxford and Cambridge themselves may be among the least viable locations for new large-scale development, due to high land prices, limited land availability and the presence of green belt around both cities.

In contrast, Milton Keynes will be highly receptive to new development, benefiting from a central location within the Arc, a greater supply of affordable, developable land and a local council that already has substantial expansion plans. The NIC suggests that Milton Keynes has the potential to double in size to become a city of over 500,000 people.

Milton Keynes is also expected to be the biggest single focus for employment growth and commercial property development. Under Cambridge Econometrics’ transformational growth scenario, 136,000 new jobs would be created in Milton Keynes by 2050, more than in any other local authority in the Arc. This level of employment growth would require the volume of office and industrial floor space to increase by well over 60%.

Arc of vision

Much of the initial focus of plans for the Arc has been on the need for new housing, but the commercial property sector will have an important role to play in driving economic growth. High quality workplaces will be needed to support the knowledge based industries that are the region’s key economic assets.

Phoenix centre full thanks to Doodlebone and Riteweld

The newly-developed Phoenix Centre in Banbury, close to Junction 11 of the M40, which comprises nearly 50,000 sq ft of modern warehousing and industrial accommodation in three units, is now fully occupied.

Doodlebone and Riteweld join existing tenant Kannegiesser in the development close to junction 11 of the M40.

Doodlebone, which provides “groovy” dog apparel, has seen growth in its business since 2011 and was keen to expand to a larger unit.

Riteweld Engineering, established in 1983, is a supplier of structural and architectural fabrication within the steel, engineering and design industry. Its business includes designs of bridges, staircases, balconies and custom architecture.

Kannegiesser, founded in 1948, provides industrial washing technology internationally and is a world market leader in industrial laundry technology.

Harvey White, Commercial Property Negotiator at White Commercial Surveyors, said: “The three occupiers have all expanded from smaller units within Banbury and are all undergoing significant and substantial expansion.”

Construction is set to begin on a new distribution and manufacturing park in Bicester following approval by Cherwell District Council of Albion Land’s detailed planning application.

Axis J9 will be a major employment park totalling 500,000 sq ft of new commercial buildings.

They will be built in three phases and comprise five mid-sized units and eight smaller units ranging in size between 3,400 and 64,000 sq ft.

The site lies three miles from Junction 9 of the M40 and close to more than 10,000 planned new homes.

Construction, along with infrastructure work to provide the new Middleton

Stoney Road access, will start this month with completion due in mid-2020.

Located west of Howes Lane and north of Middleton Stoney Road, the area was identified for employment development space by Cherwell District Council as part of its Local Plan.

Outline planning permission was granted in December 2017.

Simon Parsons, director for Albion Land, said: “For Cherwell District Council to recognise the significance of Axis J9 to the local area means that we can speculatively start to develop phases 1 and 2.”

White Commercial, Colliers International and VSL are the commercial letting agents.

Space: The final frontier at Harwell Campus

The Harwell Space Cluster has added 14 new companies to its impressive roster, now comprised of 92 organisations.

Collectively employing more than 1,040 people, Harwell says it is now Europe’s most concentrated space cluster, uniting commercial, public and academic organisations focused on delivering on the UK’s vision to achieve 10 per cent of the global market share by 2030.

One of the start-ups on campus is Archangel Imaging (AI), which builds distributed intelligence systems and advanced unmanned camera systems that help with operations that are “off the grid”, or away from bandwidth.

Jonathan Mist, CEO and founder of Archangel Imaging (AI), believes many of mankind’s biggest challenges such as protecting our oceans or dealing with disasters, require operations without high bandwidth or reliable communications.

He said: “By using robotics, drone and space technology, we plan to provide workable solutions to these urgent issues.”

The opportunity for all companies to collaborate with teams and businesses across the space, healthtec and energytec Clusters, all co-located on site, has already resulted in new projects.