Galliford Try lands £97m Brent Cross scheme

Galliford Try’s appointment to build the 286-apartment scheme in Brent Cross comes on the back of developer Related Argent and joint venture partner Invesco Real Estate secured the necessary £97m debt finance.

Designed by Allies & Morrison, this will be Cross Town’s second build-to-rent (BTR) building.

The debt financing takes the form of a green loan from LaSalle Investment Management. The building is designed to be supplied with very low carbon heating and cooling from the development’s electric district heating and cooling network, which is being installed by Vattenfall.

Six buildings are now under way at Brent Cross Town, the first of which should be completed by the end of 2024. In total, more than 930 homes, including affordable, market sale and BtR flats are going up, along with 662 student rooms in partnership with Fusion Students. Sheffield Hallam University will open its first satellite campus outside of Yorkshire at Brent Cross Town, and a joint venture between Audley Group and Senior Living Investment Partners (Octopus Real Estate and Pension Investment Corporation) will create a retirement complex with around 150 homes.

Brent Cross Town is being delivered in partnership between Related Argent and Barnet Council. There are plans for a total of 6,700 new homes, three million sq ft of offices, a high street and schools surrounded by 50 acres of parks and playing fields, including the new 4.5-acre Claremont Park which was completed last year. The new town will be served by Brent Cross West station, which will be the first new mainline station in London in more than a decade when it opens in the next few weeks.

Galliford Try is already building the first BTR block at Brent Cross Town – which has 249 flats.

Related Argent managing director Tom Goodall said: “There is strong momentum behind our BTR portfolio with our first rental homes now completed at Author King’s Cross and over 1,000 BTR homes under construction.”

John German, managing director for residential investments at Invesco Real Estate, added: “When Invesco and Related Argent closed our joint venture in October 2022, we only had one build contract and one loan in place.  12 months later, we now have secured all four build contracts and the necessary loan facilities to enable the project to move forward as we had planned.  We are delighted that the project team achieved this key milestone which now allows the project to move forward into the delivery stage to enable these assets to be delivered into our investor’s existing BtR Portfolio of just under 1,100 units.”

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