MEPC completes £40m development Nebula at Milton Park

Property investor and developer MEPC has completed its £40 million Nebula development at Milton Park business campus in Oxfordshire.

Comprising seven sustainable research and development (R&D) workspaces totalling nearly 80,000 sq ft, Nebula’s design and build focuses on environmentally conscious materials.

It incorporates glue-laminated structural timber beams in place of steel, in what is believed to be a UK-first for a R&D workspace.

Surplus wood from the site was also donated to Oxfordshire-based social enterprise RAW Workshop, where it’s been recycled into educational materials and new products.

Delivered by Barnwood Limited, the build has achieved an upfront embodied carbon saving of 686 tonnes of CO₂ through construction – the equivalent of 196 return flights to Hong Kong.

Nebula is aimed at science, technology or advanced engineering companies, with internal vaulted roof heights of eight metres to accommodate large scientific equipment or engineering instruments.

One of the workspaces has already been pre-let.

The completion follows the announcement of a refreshed local development order (LDO) at Milton Park, expected to support thousands of new jobs and permit 4.2 million sq ft of development.

It will see planning decisions streamlined to just 10 days.

“Delivered through our streamlined ten-day planning LDO, Nebula has been driven by the project team’s collective ambition to create a new R&D development which seamlessly blends design and sustainability, creating an attractive work environment for future occupiers to innovate.

“Following this significant milestone, we’re looking forward to opening the doors and showing new and prospective occupiers around this flagship project for Milton Park.

Nebula’s completion also comes in the wake of the government’s Oxford-Cambridge announcement to create a ‘Silicon Corridor’ of growth.

It plans to attract up to £78 billion into the economy by 2035 and realise the region’s potential as a global centre for science and innovation.

Lord Vallance, science minister, added: “Modern, high-tech facilities are essential to taking full advantage of rapidly developing science and technology and in fulfilling our ambitions for the Oxford-Cambridge corridor to be an economic engine for the whole of the UK.

“Nebula’s new development of large-scale innovation space will support a range of growing industries, helping businesses to get off the ground and progress, and in turn supporting this government’s number one mission of economic growth.”

Also on the project team are SRA Architects, ASA Landscape Architects, CBRE (leasing agents), Ridge & Partners LLP (BREEAM, cost management, M&E, principal design, project management), Stantec (civil and structural engineering), Mainer Associates (sustainability consultant), William Downie Associates (utilities) and Cundall (carbon consultant).