Brent Cross Town

The social value delivery approach of a new town centre development for the London Borough of Barnet.
Case Studies

Member written

Project Overview

This case study is featured in UKGBC’s report, A Guide for Delivering Social Value on Built Environment Projects.

Brent Cross Town is a £7bn new town centre development for London set around 50 acres of parks and playing fields. The scheme includes 3 million square foot of office space, 6,700 new homes, student accommodation, restaurants and sports and leisure facilities. Construction started in 2020 and the first permanent buildings will be completed in 2024. The Joint Venture partners (Argent Related and Barnet Council) are currently working with University of Manchester and Buro Happold to undertake innovative quantitative and qualitative research to develop a ‘Flourishing Index’ for Brent Cross Town. The ‘Flourishing Index’ will be used to inform social value target-setting and the development of a Social Value Delivery Plan.

What makes the project interesting?

  • The project is an example of a joint venture that has leveraged UK Research Council and match-funding to create transdisciplinary MA and PhD opportunities.
  • It is expected that all anonymised data collected will be open source. This will be achieved by working with Data for London.
  • The project involves the innovative use of both routinely collected and bespoke data, drawing on established and novel digital techniques. Both datasets were analysed based on input and interpretation from local people, stakeholders, professionals, and experts giving a deep understanding of the data.
  • Drawing on Medical Research Council and Nesta research standards, the project goes beyond Post Occupancy Evaluation, collecting ‘before and after’ data, providing a unique opportunity to understand additionality.

Future considerations:

  • Develop a social value delivery plan and an approach for ongoing monitoring and reporting.
  • The survey work involved working with adults and future work will look at developing a Flourishing Index for children and teenagers.
  • Consideration of global social impact via supply chains and local sustainable behaviours that may overlap with experiences of wellbeing.

Location

UK

UK availability

Yes

Date added

Oct, 2022

Project partners

Argent Related and Barnet Council – (Joint venture), Buro Happold and University of Manchester – (Research/consultant lead)

Project status

Completion date from 2024

Project size

3 million sq. f. of office space, 6,700 new homes, student accommodation, restaurants and sports and leisure facilities

Approaches Used

The ‘Flourishing Index’ is only one part of the social value delivery approach for Brent Cross Town. Over a three-year timeframe the following has been delivered:

Agree on social value purpose, identify priority stakeholder, and understand stakeholder needs

  • Argent Related with support from Buro Happold developed a Sustainability Strategy that set out a vision for Brent Cross Town to become a thriving and inclusive exemplar of urban regeneration. Desk-based research was used to understand local need and inform the Sustainability Strategy. This included analysis of previous stakeholder consultation, key local authority documents and various publicly accessible local datasets including ONS wellbeing scores and Joint Strategic Needs Assessments.
  • Online discussion groups were then held with a representative group of local community members (led jointly by University of Manchester and Buro Happold). These focused on understanding stakeholder definitions of health and wellbeing, and the priorities for change locally. The approach was based on the UK What Works Centre for Wellbeing and the National Institute for Health Research’s public engagement guidance. The findings of this work underpinned an initial Theory of Change, in turn, providing further foundations for the following steps.

Create a social value delivery plan and put in place a social value measurement framework

  • Rather than develop a social value delivery plan before putting a social value measurement framework in place Brent Cross Town needed a measurement framework to gather bespoke baseline data, ahead of the first major phases of Brent Cross Town delivery. The University of Manchester used a mixed-methods data collection approach, including intercept and online surveys (more than 1,500 participants), direct and automated behaviour observations (more than 10,000 observations), and air pollution monitoring. For each dataset, a matched UK or European comparison was sought.

Understand stakeholder needs and agree social value outcomes

  • To add further detail to the baseline data, complementary engagement activities with local stakeholders (community, businesses, local charities) were organised to plug any gaps in evidence. This led to a more comprehensive list of outcomes and indicators within the ‘Flourishing Index’.

Create a social value delivery plan

  • As part of preparation for a forthcoming Social Value strategy, examples of national and international best practice were compiled.

Ongoing measurement, monitoring and reporting

  • To continue the ‘golden thread’ of stakeholder engagement, the baseline findings and best practice examples were co-interpreted, to set salient and ambitious targets – providing ‘north stars’ to guide the Social Value Strategy and planned ongoing monitoring.

Key Sustainability Objectives/ Outcomes

Social Value outcomes

The ‘Flourishing Index’ includes:

  • Subjective Wellbeing (SWB)
    • Personal SWB outcomes (hedonic and eudaimonic) e.g. “life going well for me”.
    • Social SWB outcomes e.g. life going well for “us”.
    • Specific SWB outcomes including satisfaction with key aspects of life such as income, jobs, and housing.
  • Key wellbeing activities e.g. Connect, Be Active, and Take Notice.

Related

Yorkhill

The social value delivery approach for the mixed-use development plan for the closure of Yorkhill.
Case Studies