Ongoing regeneration is lifting Stevenage’s potential, and future investment around the town centre and station gateway will accelerate that. Having an expanding science park and business quarter will open the door to these campuses where putting life science on display can also help. But it’s about creating a sense of place that makes it the right choice for people’s careers and their families, both in terms of affordability and opportunity.
At the heart of the golden triangle, Stevenage leads cell and gene therapy on a global scale. The Stevenage Campus is at the centre of the largest Cell and Gene cluster in Europe and is third largest in the world. The key to their rising continuum is by providing an ecosystem which translates businesses seamlessly through the phases, from start-up to scaled manufacturing, and then linking the outcomes directly to the patient.
Investors demand it, tenants demand it, our planet demands it. It’s vital that procurement enables streamlined planning and early contractor engagement so that intelligent solutions can be implemented early in the design phase and benefit way beyond the build. Undertaking and then using Post Occupancy Evaluation results to inform the next design and sustainable footprint in campus development.
Acquiring skills to work in this sector sustainably is important and the next generation of talent can be home grown. This requires great connection between the education establishments, investment bodies and skills providers, to ensure local people can take the opportunities emerging. SITEC is a great example of making this dream a reality.
A ‘sticky’ campus where people love to work keeps the tenant portfolio ticking – aside from great design to encourage collaboration by osmosis within buildings, this is also delivered through access to equipment, mentoring, skills training and finance all suited to the start-ups stage of development.
Straight after the workshop, we caught up with our round table hosts to get their take on the key discussion points.
Watch Dr Sally Ann Forsyth OBE (CEO at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst), David Rowsell (Area Director for Morgan Sindall Construction in the Northern Home Counties) and Jamie Shearman (Area Director for Morgan Sindall Construction in Cambridgeshire) wrap up the discussions in our two 90 second summaries opposite…
Video 1An exciting time for Stevenage
Video 2Sustainable life science buildings