abrdn’s AIPUT (Airport Industrial Property Unit Trust) fund has submitted a planning application for the first major regeneration project funded by its sustainability-linked credit facility with Wells Fargo Bank – a 67,000ft² warehouse at its London Heathrow Radius Park campus in West London.
The inaugural renovation project will be financed under the £350 million sustainability-linked credit facility recently secured with Wells Fargo Bank. This will see two adjacent warehouse units at Radius Park comprehensively stripped back to the steel frame and re-clad to create a cornerstone single warehouse facility on the estate, enhancing the existing built footprint to achieve 67,000ft². The new building is expected to comfortably achieve EPC ‘A’ and a minimum of BREEAM ‘Excellent’ sustainability accreditation.
The renovation project has been designed to achieve carbon neutrality, both in terms of embedded carbon and the site’s operational performance. With the concrete floor slab and the majority of structural steelwork being retained, the project aims to secure a highly-positive Whole Life Carbon Assessment.
Building materials will, wherever possible, be locally sourced using maximised recycled and recyclable content, aiming for nil waste to landfill. Highly efficient and sustainable heating and cooling systems will be incorporated, together with a full rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system that will reduce the occupier’s energy costs by at least 10% compared to the market standard. Excess renewable power generated by the PV will be exported to the grid.
This project signals the opening of a new chapter in the fund’s strategy to deliver highly desirable, low-carbon and high energy performing logistics warehouses that will have a positive impact at a local level as well as for UK plc.
The RP6 planning application also presents a new opportunity to assess the feasibility of a Smart Grid installation, which could be progressively rolled out further across the fund’s portfolio of airport-focused logistics locations throughout London.
The new warehouse building, subject to planning permission from the London Borough of Hounslow, will be developed speculatively, with a pre-let expected to be signed during the planning period.
AIPUT’s principal advisers on the planning application at Radius Park are PRC Planning and Northland.
