British Land’s construction executive discusses the key considerations when selecting contractors, and how the firm operates
Matthew White, construction executive, British Land
How do you see market conditions changing over the next year?
Certainly across the board we see a tough market at the moment, but if you’ve got the right assets it’s the place to be. We feel the space we have is the space we want - high-end space that there is demand for.
What’s your pipeline looking like?
Our committed development programme is worth £1.4bn, spread across our portfolio. This includes £1.2bn of offices, 2.2 million ft2 predominantly in the West End and the City of London. We see London and the South-east as being the areas that will perform best in terms of the office market for the foreseeable future.
We’ve recently completed 10 Portland Square and we are about to complete 10 & 20 Brock Street in Regent’s Place near the Euston Tower, which includes 500,000 ft2 of office, retail and community space and 100 market flats and 70 affordable residential units. The Leadenhall ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ is topping out next month and will complete the second quarter of 2014, followed by the new UBS headquarters at 5 Broadgate at the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015. We’ve also carried out a number of quite large acquisitions worth £500m, including the Clarges Estate on Piccadilly and Ealing shopping centre, which we will be developing after that.
We’ve already committed a lot of spend un