Airdrie Town Centre Vision (RSL Partner)

North Lanarkshire Council (the Council) has ambitions to reshape, repopulate and regenerate each of its eight town centres. This includes in Airdrie, a traditional and historic town centre that is served by excellent public transport links to Glasgow and Edinburgh and where the Council is progressing plans to create a much more active, vibrant town centre for people to live, learn, work, invest and visit. Airdrie is the third largest town in North Lanarkshire (by population), with around 37,000 residents living in the town. The recently approved Airdrie Town Vision sets out an aspiration for Airdrie town centre to become an outstanding place to live: Airdrie with its improved access and connections offers excellent opportunities for town centre living. The historic centre with sensitive urban infill and building conversions will provide a range of homes meeting a wide range of local needs with good access to services and an attractive town centre environment. The Council is keen to diversify tenure and attract a wider range of households to live in Airdrie town centre. In particular, it is keen to encourage and enable the development of mid-market rented homes which are accessible and attractive to younger and working households on moderate and middle incomes. Airdrie boasts an enviable location close to some of Scotland’s largest employment centres, as the nearest large town to BioCity, Eurocentral, Maxim Park and University Hospital Monklands. The Council is also looking to establish Airdrie as hubs for creative sector activity and for enterprise, which may further increase both the attractiveness of Airdrie and demand for housing in the town centre. Given the relatively low levels of Local Housing Allowance in North Lanarkshire, the Council recognises that providing mid-market rent, even with Affordable Housing Supply Programme grant, can be challenging given the current high costs of development. The Council is developing a model, based on selling completed developments to RSL subsidiaries for mid-market rent, on a turnkey basis. It intends to complete a number of small conversion and development projects and invite bids from eligible organisations for the transfer of these assets. The Council will provide a ‘guide price’ informed by detailed financial modelling, alongside findings from a demand analysis report which it will commission, and RSL subsidiaries will be invited to make bids to acquire the completed assets. If a RSL bid is accepted, the Council would potentially bear any risk that the guide price is not met. The scale of this potential opportunity depends on the outcome of a number of external funding bids which the Council is currently pursuing. Should the market wish to clarify any element of the requirement, they should utilise the “Questions and answers” function within the PIN on PCS.