Milton Park: MEPC gets green light for speculative office and laboratory development

MEPC has secured planning consent at Milton Park in Oxfordshire for the first speculative office and laboratory development to be submitted and approved in the UK since the EU referendum in June. Three new buildings totalling 110,000 sq ft at Park Drive East, designed and specified with a high level of flexibility to appeal to science and technology companies with research and development activities, will be fast-tracked and completed by late 2017. 

The new £25 million development, which MEPC will manage on behalf of the £26 billion Hermes Investment Management, will be the largest-ever speculative development of its kind at Milton Park. It will meet some of the urgent needs of occupiers in the strong Oxfordshire business community as identified in the recent Oxford Innovation Engine report.  

James Dipple, CEO at MEPC, said: “MEPC is confident that the economic drivers for this region are strong despite some uncertainty post-referendum and this scheme will let very well due to the acute shortage of the right type of floor space in Oxfordshire to cater for innovative businesses to grow. The project will create an opportunity for new companies to join the Milton Park community, and will help satisfy new requirements from within the existing customer base. It will reinforce the Park as the destination of choice for science and technology businesses within the region.”  

Chris Taylor, head of private markets at Hermes Investment Management, said: “With global capital increasingly gravitating towards talent, our investment in the ongoing regeneration of Milton Park illustrates the way in which the themes associated with urbanisation, globalisation, technology and sustainability combine to drive occupational demand to the region. Milton Park is firmly established as an anchor destination for life sciences due to its close links to nearby Oxford University and its Life Science Division, which ranks first globally.”

Located in the heart of the Science Vale UK Enterprise Zone, Milton Park is one of Europe’s largest and most successful integrated business, science and technology parks under single-ownership. It is now home to over 9,000 people and 250 organisations. The already impressive occupier mix at Milton Park includes world-leading biotechnology companies Adaptimmune and Immunocore.

This development follows hot on the heels of 168,000 sq ft of pre-let development at Milton Park in four buildings, two of which are now occupied by DC Payments and Crowcon and two of which are due to be completed later this year. MEPC’s previous speculative development at Milton Park was 101 & 102 Park Drive, which completed in 2014 and achieved a record rent for Oxfordshire.