Carnaby - H2so.com

“We are big believers in
Crossrail; it is going
to be a major catalyst
for change.”
Toby Courtauld GPE
CONNECTING
CROSSRAIL
Great Portland Estates is one of London’s
leading property developers. It is also positioned
to benefit from the biggest infrastructure
project in the Capital’s history. Duncan Lamb
spoke to the company’s chief executive and
portfolio director about the importance of
making the Crossrail connection.
WITH
When calculating the likely usage of a
train or underground station, Transport
for London analyses an 800-metre
catchment area around each location.
Great Portland Estates currently
has 17 development projects either
underway or planned in London and
more than 80% of the floorspace that
these schemes create will be within
800m of a new Crossrail station.
So the correlation between GPE’s
3.5m sq ft development programme
and the major transport benefits
that Crossrail will deliver is clear.
When talking to the company’s Chief
Executive, Toby Courtauld, and its
Portfolio Director, Neil Thompson, the
conversation soon turns to Crossrail.
Courtauld points out: “The reason we
think Crossrail is so significant is not
just that it will improve the Capital’s
transport infrastructure but also
that it will increase London’s railway
capacity by 10%. That is a huge
proportion. Not only is it big in terms
of number of passenger movements
but it’s also where those people are
being taken to that’s significant.
“For the first time ever you will have
the situation where people are getting
on trains in the outskirts of London
and beyond and coming right in to
the West End. The linkage of the four
main commercial areas in London –
Canary Wharf, the City, the West End
and Heathrow – by a single railway is
almost unique in the world. We are
big believers in Crossrail; it is going
to be a major catalyst for change.”
Crossrail is the biggest engineering
project in Europe and will connect
37 stations, including Heathrow
Airport and Maidenhead in the west
with Canary Wharf, Abbey Wood and
Shenfield in the east. Its aim is to
make travelling in the region easier and
quicker, and help to reduce crowding
on London’s transport network. It will
place an additional 1.5m people within
a 45-minute commute into London.
For many years, the project seemed
a pipe-dream and even when it was
given the go-ahead some observers
feared that the recession would
curtail or compromise the scope of
the scheme. However, Courtauld and
Thompson have absolute confidence
that it will be delivered.
Six years of shrewd buying around
Hanover Square – where the eastern
entrance of the new Bond Street
Crossrail station will be located – has
seen GPE assemble a development
site which will enable the company to
build more than 200,000 sq ft of offices
together with shops and apartments.
Perhaps the best illustration of the
potential of combining a large scale
development site in the West End in
close proximity to a Crossrail station
is that by March 2012, the Hanover
Square holdings were the company’s
best performing assets showing a
37% uplift in value.
However, work on the project will
not be possible until 2015 when
the Crossrail station builders are
finished in the square. In the nearer
term, the focus switches to another
project which GPE expects to feel
the Crossrail halo effect.
In September 2011, the company
paid Royal Mail £120m for a 2.3-acre
site on Rathbone Place just north of
Oxford Street. The site is a short walk
from the new Tottenham Court Road
underground/Crossrail interchange
station. It came with a planning
consent for a development providing
380,000 sq ft of offices, residential
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4 020 Issue 2 Q2 2013 H2SO.COM 5