Slough Borough Council’s former headquarters was mistakenly listed as for sale online, the council has said.
St Martins Place on Bath Road appeared for sale online earlier this week. It was described as ‘an excellent development or conversion opportunity’ in a listing on the Houses For Sale To Rent search engine. This was visible on Tuesday, June 25, but has since been removed.
The council says the former HQ ‘isn’t for sale right now’ and was apparently published by mistake by its property agents.
Slough Borough Council left St Martins Place in 2019 to move into its current headquarters on Windsor Road. Council leaders said in February 2021 that they hoped the building could be turned into 64 flats, all of them marketed as affordable homes.
But the accidental appearance of the advert indicates the troubled council may seek to sell it off as part of a plan to pay off its debts after effectively going bankrupt in July that year.
The advert said: “St Martins Place represents an excellent development or conversion opportunity to deliver a significant residential or alternative use scheme.
“The property was the former headquarters of Slough Borough Council and has been vacant since the Slough Borough Council relocated to Observatory House in 2019.”
It adds that the offices are ‘conveniently’ close to Slough Train Station and town centre and that it ‘benefits from excellent transport links’.
A council spokesperson confirmed that St Martins Place is on the list of assets that could be sold off but that it is not currently for sale.
The spokesperson said: “St Martins place isn’t for sale right now. We have a strong and active programme to bring surplus assets to the market but on this occasion the advert was not part of a marketing initiative and has been removed.
“We apologise for any confusion this may have caused.” They added that the error seemed to have been made by the property agent that the council is working with on its asset sales programme.
Slough Borough Council hopes to raise some £600 million from asset sales – which it hoped to have achieved by March 2027.
However a recent report on the council’s budget for last year says this is now ‘unrealistic’ as some sales have been delayed.
At a meeting of council leaders on June 17 councillor Wal Chahal – who is responsible for finance – said the borough couldn’t sell all of its assets at once.
He said: “We can’t market all of them at the same time because we’ll have a fire sale – we wouldn’t get the value we need for these.”
But he added: “We’ve got to sell a significant amount of our assets to pay off the debt profile that we have otherwise we will be sinking under the debt.”
St Martins Place represents an excellent development or conversion opportunity to deliver a significant residential or alternative use scheme that conveniently lies within close proximity to Slough town centre and railway station, which now benefits from an operational Crossrail service.
The property was the former headquarters of Slough Borough Council and has been vacant since the Slough Borough Council relocated to Observatory House in 2019.
Location
The subject site is located on Bath Road within the Salt Hill area, Slough. The site is located c. 0.4 miles west from Slough High Street and c. 0.8 miles southwest from Slough rail station.
Slough High Street offers a selection of shops, restaurants, and cafes, including a large Tesco Extra. The closest bus stop is opposite the site which provides frequent services into Slough Town Centre, Langley and Heathrow Airport.
The surrounding area comprises a mix of commercial, leisure and residential uses. Neighbouring the eastern boundary is Capital Point office building occupied by Lego and Airspan, whilst opposite the site across the Bath Road (A4) is Salt Hill Activity Centre and Park.
At the southern boundary is the Slough Ice Arena and the proposed Slough Urban Renewal redevelopment of the former Montem Leisure Centre and the adjacent car park, which benefits from planning consent to deliver a residential development of 212 homes.
At the western boundary is another office building let to Reckitt and Hamol Limited.
Connectivity
The property benefits from excellent transport links with Slough bus and railway station a convenient 15 minute walk and offering Elizabeth Line services direct into London Paddington in c. 38 minutes and Reading in c. 25 minutes. The station also provides services via Great Western Railway to Didcot Parkway, Windsor and Eton Central, Hereford and Oxford.
The location benefits from accessible road connections via the M4, which runs east towards junction 15 of the M25 and west to Bristol and Wales.
Additionally, London Heathrow Airport is a short 20 minute drive via the M4 and M25, offering extensive global destinations.
Description
The site extends to approximately 1.40 acres (0.57 hectares) and was formerly headquarters to Slough Borough Council. The site currently comprises a three storey office building with lower ground floor car parking with frontage onto Bath Road (A4) and Montem Lane. The building is almost ‘V’ shaped with a central core and two wings and extends to XX sq ft NIA and XX sq ft GIA. There is surface car parking to the rear of the building that is accessed via Montem Lane.
The property has been vacant since SBC to insert month 2019. The current layout comprises a mix of open plan floor plates with private office and meeting room areas.
The floor area breakdown has been provided below:
Floor Area (sq. m) Area (sq. ft)
Ground XX XX
First XX XX
Second XX
XX
Third XX
XX
Total XX
XX
Planning
The site is located within the administrative boundary of Slough Borough Council. It does not have any specific planning policies assigned to it. The site does not benefit from any existing planning permissions.However it should be noted that there is a Section 106 unilateral undertaking obligation dated 25th March 2022 which applies to St Martin’s Place and is pursuant to the panning application on the Montem site (S/00119/017). In summary, the main points are
This agreement applies to St Martins Place and requires 98 spaces within St. Martins Place to be allocated for a) The Ice Arena overflow car park and b) Parent parking for Claycotts School for an hour in the morning (drop-off) and an hour in the afternoon/evening (pick-up).An obligation to manage and retain the spaces in accordance with the car park management plan appended to the attached agreement. Not being able to dispose of the site without the buyer first entering into a Section 106 agreement with the Council, this agreement would be based on the attached unilateral undertaking and take a similar forSlough Borough Council have produced a Planning Appraisal, which can be accessed in the data room. We summarise the key points below:
There is scope for comprehensive redevelopment of the site for residential use and careful consideration needs to be given to the design, scale and appearance with the potential of active ground floor frontage.There is also an opportunity to provide an enhanced green infrastructure, given the proximity of the Montem Mound Scheduled Monument opposite the site which will provide public realm benefits.Any commercial ground floor uses would need to be complementary to residential use.The site sits on a prominent frontage along the Bath Road and therefore any redevelopment needs to be of a high quality.Tenure
The property is registered with the Land Registry under part of title number BK428874. Interested parties should rely on their own enquiries in relation to title matters.
Subject to contract – April 2023.
The technical data room has been compiled by Avison Young in their capacity as advisers to the Vendor. This has been compiled from information supplied by the Vendor and information available in the public domain. The technical information is provided solely for use by recipients in considering their interest in submitting an offer for the acquisition of all or any part of the Property.
Please be advised that plans, drawings and other information on the data site are protected by copyright, patent and warranty laws. The information should be used for consultations and illustrative purposes only. Therefore no reliance should be placed on the information or further copies made without the permission of the copyright owner.
