Year: 2010

Campus infrastructure and asset management specialist University Partnerships Programme (UPP) has completed a £24m deal with the University of Kent to provide on-campus accommodation for students.

Under the deal, involving £20.3m of senior debt provided by The Royal Bank of Scotland, UPP is to fund, design, develop and operate the 495-room scheme. Planning permission has already been granted and construction is underway, with builder Mansell now on site at the Canterbury campus. Construction is scheduled for completion in September 2011.

The project is UPP’s second development at the university – it has previously delivered a lecture theatre, student accommodation and teaching and conference facilities …

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Manchester-based Ocon Construction has won a contract to build a £3.4m student accommodation block in London.

It has been appointed by BHE Property Developments to put up a four-storey building with 74 flats and three retail units. The architect is London-based Pascal & Watson …

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Campus infrastructure and asset management specialist University Partnerships Programme (UPP) has completed a £24m deal with the University of Kent to provide on-campus accommodation for students.

Under the deal, involving £20.3m of senior debt provided by The Royal Bank of Scotland, UPP is to fund, design, develop and operate the 495-room scheme. Planning permission has already been granted and construction is underway, with builder Mansell now on site at the Canterbury campus. Construction is scheduled for completion in September 2011 …

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UPP has completed a £24m transaction with the University of Kent to build a new student accommodation facility …

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Unite Group has a construction pipeline of 2,300 student beds in London between 2012 and 2014, according to its latest interim management statement …

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The government may be moving to increase higher education tuition fees, but Unite Group, the UK’s largest listed student landlord, said it was still confident that the demand for accommodation would grow.

Updating the market for the five months to November 4, Unite said 97 per cent of its portfolio of nearly 40,000 beds had been reserved for the 2010/2011 academic year, and that it expected rents to increase by 3-4 per cent this year …

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Unite has confirmed its buy out of Connaught’s 40% share in UCS, a joint venture between the two firms which provides maintenance to student accommodation.

Chief executive Mark Allan said Unite had paid just £40 to acquire the stake, in line with the joint venture agreement, following Connaught’s demise in September.

This will give Unite control of all maintenance services across its student accommodation portfolio …

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Walking around King’s Cross’s goods yards in its Victorian heyday, one would encounter herds of cattle, vast piles of coal and potatoes, and even, for a short time, cadavers. Even though the clanking freight trains are now long gone, the site’s stakeholders are hoping its future will be as diverse as its past …

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The skyline of Manchester city centre will gain another tower crane next month when Shepherd Construction erects one at the £45m student housing block next to the mainline train station.

The 33-storey, 520-bed residential tower designed by Hodder & Partners is being built in Great Marlborough Street for the overseas and mature student market by newly formed developer Student Castle.

There are currently seven active cranes on three sites in the city centre: three at the new Co-operative Group headquarters, two at Chetham’s School of Music and two at Manchester Metropolitan University business school. There are two inactive cranes at West Properties’ Origin on Princess Street …

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One hundred sites in Oxford have been identified for possible development to address the city’s housing shortage.

A list has been drawn up by Oxford City Council after landowners and developers were invited to submit sites that could be built on.

The council says all the sites have potential to be developed as housing, student accommodation, shops or offices. Some of the larger sites could provide homes for hundreds of people, with the smallest plots only able to take 12 dwellings …

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