For the final phase of Bourne Business Park, LaSalle has created two highly sustainable, energy efficient and flexible office buildings, along with a new café and extensive landscaping enhancements that are boosting biodiversity and contributing to occupier wellbeing. The scheme is 100% let, successfully attracting occupiers in a challenging market.
BCO Best Commercial Workspace for South England and South Wales 2018
CIRIA BIG Biodiversity Challenge Small Project of the Year 2018
BREEAM Excellent sustainability rating
One of the world’s leading real estate investment managers, LaSalle Investment Management, believes that environmental, social and governance best practices enhance the performance of its clients’ investments.
Bourne Business Park in Weybridge is named after the River Bourne that flows along its boundary. The Park’s proximity to this river and a rich wooded landscape provide a unique setting for high quality office accommodation and amenities.
For the final phase of Bourne Business Park, LaSalle saw an opportunity to transform a fallow site into a new gateway. They set the project team the brief to create highly environmentally sustainable office buildings and improve the amenity offering and public realm, putting occupier wellbeing top of the agenda.
This led to the creation of two highly sustainable, energy efficient and flexible buildings, providing 8,660m2 of quality office accommodation, along with a vibrant new café and 6,500m2 of green space and landscaping enhancements that maximise wellbeing opportunities for occupiers and exceed planning requirements for ecology.
The project team included architects TP Bennett, main contractor Volker Fitzpatrick, project managers JLL, engineers Hoare Lea and Campbell Reith, landscape architects MacGregor Smith and ecology consultants ARC. They introduced a range of features set out in LaSalle’s Green Guide and piloted several new initiatives.
New riverside garden blending formal landscaping with additional green space to create a shared environment for people and wildlife.
98 new trees planted, along with foodplant species, providing pollen, nectar, foliage, seeds and fruit, plus structural overwintering habitat such as hollow-stemmed plants and a new honeysuckle green wall.
Financial benefits of the ecology initiatives could include reduced losses and maintenance costs in landscaping by choosing the right mix at the start and giving it room to settle into a self-sustaining design. Longer term financial benefits could also result from improved occupier engagement and satisfaction with the Park through wildlife encounters, natural space benefits and common cause for participation shared across occupiers, as everyone can get involved in making room for wildlife where they work and take some of those ideas home, too.
BIODIVERSITY
How to maximise ecological and amenity value?
Prior to redevelopment, the brownfield site was surveyed and categorised as being of “low to moderate ecological value”. It had no mature trees, public access or recreational facilities. A landscape strategy was created to transform an impenetrable wooded area into thriving woodland, with healthy trees, varied habitats for wildlife and a trim trail for occupiers. Underused areas became landscaped green spaces, enhanced for biodiversity gain and for maximising opportunities for occupiers to enjoy nature and encounter wildlife. A locally important Schedule 1 species, kingfisher, has been heard within the site. LaSalle plans to carry out annual biodiversity audits to monitor key measures of ecological gain, such as species total, river dragonfly diversity, nest box use and riparian plant species. This will highlight further opportunities to improve conservation management. Bourne’s riverside garden is a new approach for LaSalle, which the team is exploring opportunities to replicate across its investment estate. It is also informing the development of LaSalle’s emerging European policy for biodiversity.
OCCUPIERS
How to engage occupiers in wellbeing initiatives?
At Bourne Business Park, the landscaping enhancements and new café have opened up new opportunities for the Savills site team to engage with occupiers on wellbeing and grow the community aspect of the Park. The site team is in regular liaison with occupiers, discussing ideas for wellbeing initiatives. As a result, there are now regular free exercise classes designed for people of all ages and abilities to enjoy, including yoga twice a week, power walking twice a week and boot camp once a week. Token hunts for prizes around the Park encourage fun exercise and exploring of the grounds. Monthly wellness markets hosted in Caffe Kix feature organic health and wellbeing gifts. For occupiers who cycle to work, there is a discounted bike maintenance clinic each month. There is also a vegetable plot and plans to introduce an allotment and an apiary with a webcam that occupiers can view anytime through the Park app, as well as monthly talks by expert beekeepers.