The money raised from the sale of the two sites will allow the Trust, which provides mental health and community care, to move the services to more appropriate and modern facilities and to re-invest in its existing properties.
Homes England’s role is to boost overall housing supply and economic growth, using its land, finance and expertise to speed up the delivery of new homes.
Scott Haldane, Director of Finance at CPFT, said: “Working with Homes England has allowed us to conclude this sale quickly and find better accommodation for our services to ensure we continue to provide the best possible care for our patients.”
Both sites were originally developed in the 1960s, but many of the buildings are now no longer considered ‘fit for purpose’ and are increasingly costly for the Trust to maintain.
The Gloucester Centre hosts a range of mental health community, social care and child health teams and the Trust’s Peterborough Recovery College. The site will continue to be occupied by the Trust for up to 18 months while more appropriate accommodation is found in Peterborough.
The majority of the services based on the Ida Darwin Site have already relocated as part of an earlier planned withdrawal from the site, and the rest of the site will be vacated in two further phases.
Phase two will take place by September 2018 and will include the relocation of the remaining corporate teams based on the site to new premises.
Phase three will take place within the next five years and will include moving the three children’s mental health inpatient units (the Croft, Phoenix and Darwin Centre) and the Trust’s Conference Centre. This five-year timeframe has been agreed through a novel ‘sale and lease back’ feature as part of the Homes England transfer.
CPFT is looking at a number of options for re-providing the children’s wards including relocating them to new facilities on the Fulbourn Hospital site.
Outline planning permission had been granted for 203 new homes on the Ida Darwin site and 123 new homes are anticipated for the Gloucester Centre subject to planning.
Stephen Kinsella, Director of Land at Homes England, said; “This site is an excellent example of Homes England’s commitment to bringing public land back into use for new homes. We’re really excited by the potential for 326 new homes across these two sites and look forward to seeing the plans progress.”
CPFT worked closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS Improvement to ensure the sale could proceed quickly; using new financial mechanisms created to support NHS Trusts to put funds back into patient care quickly by releasing estates.
About Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) is a health and social care organisation, providing integrated community, mental health and learning disability services, across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and children’s community services in Peterborough.
We support a population of just under a million people and employ more than 3,900 staff. Our largest bases are at the Cavell Centre, Peterborough, and Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, but our staff are based in over 90 locations. We are a University of Cambridge Teaching Trust and member of Cambridge University Health Partners, working together with the University of Cambridge Clinical School.
About Homes England
Homes England is the new housing delivery organisation that has been created to adopt a more commercial approach to respond to the long term housing challenges facing this country. The new, expanded agency will play a far bigger role in investing in supply and intervening in the market to help deliver 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade.
Homes England will act differently from its predecessor, bringing together money, land, expertise and planning and compulsory purchase powers to accelerate the supply of new homes and address affordability issues in areas of highest demand.
For more information on Homes England visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england or follow us on Twitter.
About the Sir Robert Naylor Review
This sale fits into the wider work being doing across the NHS, following the Naylor Review, to transform the NHS estate to improve patient care. This sale is significant for the Naylor work because not only does it generate income but it also will eventually contribute to the ambition to build 26,000 new homes on surplus NHS lands.
Sir Robert Naylor’s review was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt, when it was recognised that there was a need to tackle how the NHS manages its estate. Sir Robert Naylor made it clear in his report that without the £10 billion investment promised by the government, the NHS would be held back in future-proofing care.
In January the Government responded to Sir Robert Naylor’s review, ‘NHS Property and Estates’, and set out its plans to transform the NHS estate.
These include:
- Thousands of new and affordable homes built on surplus NHS land, with NHS staff given first refusal to buy up to 3,000 of these homes, which will most likely be set out in contracts with property developers who buy these lands.
- A dedicated £3.9 billion capital investment fund, as announced at the Autumn Budget, to support the release of the surplus land and speed up the transformation process.
- Giving the NHS access to the full £10 billion investment that Sir Robert Naylor said it needs – made up of Government funding, money unlocked by land sales, and private finance where this provides value for money.
The estate is the second biggest expenditure for the NHS after its workforce, and these plans aim to drastically cut back wasteful costs – such as empty, dilapidated buildings – and instead generate new revenue which will help modernise facilities to improve patient care.
The money generated by the release of surplus land will be reinvested directly back into NHS services, enabling patient care to be delivered in state-of-the-art facilities.
The Government is guaranteeing that funds generated by local sales, as part of Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) plans, will be reinvested directly back into NHS services.