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L&Q pulls out of £800m Purfleet contract
London’s largest housing association, L&Q, has pulled out of an £800m contract in Essex, to be replaced by Swan Housing Group.
The association had been signed up to the contract to regenerate Purfleet Town Centre and the surrounding areas for almost two years, but backed out at the end of September, according to a notice posted on the Official Journal of the European Union.
Swan will take over the contract to provide 2,800 homes as well as a TV and film studio. The development contract will remain largely the same.
The contract had been a significant one for the association, which has recently been trying to expand its activities in the strategic purchasing of land for development. In an article for Inside Housing in February this year, its development director Jerome Geoghegan cited the Purfleet regeneration as evidence of L&Q’s shift towards strategic land.
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In that month, L&Q purchased Gallagher Estates, one of the UK’s leading strategic land businesses. This was the largest deal of its nature that the association had undertaken.
According to its annual financial report, L&Q has invested £11m in the project, buying shares in a company called Purfleet Centre Regeneration Limited (PCRL), which is chaired by Sir Tim Laurence.
The scheme is being led by regeneration specialists Urban Catalyst, and will include a 600,000 square foot ‘media village’. Swan will now take over L&Q’s equity stake in PCRL.
Purfleet has been at the centre of regeneration efforts since 2009, when the government-backed Thurrock Development Corporation sought a partner for a £500m joint venture.
L&Q has pursued a number of different joint ventures in recent months, including an innovative venture with Manchester-based Trafford Housing Trust (THT).
In September this year, Larry Gold, deputy chief executive and chief financial officer at THT, announced that the partners were looking for a third party to join that venture.
L&Q, Swan and Thurrock Council all declined to comment.
