Joint Venture Partner for the Durham Innovation District

Durham County Council are seeking a Joint Venture Partner to develop the council owned Aykley Heads site, as a catalyst for the new Durham Innovation District. The 15ha site is within single council ownership; has outline planning permission for 39,000 square metres of commercial floorspace for up to 4,000 jobs. It sits within a wider 60ha area of the city that is the emerging Durham Innovation District, encompassing the new University Business School and Milburngate, a 450,000 sq ft mixed-use development. Aykley Heads and the Durham Innovation District will provide a platform to maximise the benefits of economic growth. It will identify key areas of opportunity, including research and advanced manufacturing, green jobs, electronics, digital and creative, fintech, life sciences and satellite applications sectors. Inward investment will also be directly focused on these specialisms and ecosystems to create sustainable supply chains and jobs across the county and beyond. This procurement is to appoint a JV partner who will seek to retain a long-term interest in the development beyond the construction phase and has the experience and expertise of creating, running and managing an Innovation District. This will ensure: -The partner brings expertise & desire to hold assets over the long term -A partnership approach which shares risk and reward with partner -That the council can retain high level of control on programme, use and quality -Council control can be further protected through phased approach of land transfer in to JV -The council has the benefit of a partner with long term commitment to the site -The partner would bring long term management experience and capability Although the Joint Venture will initially focus on the Aykley Heads location, the JV scope (of goods, works and services) may be expanded in the future to cover wider County Durham area opportunities in order to support the strategic objectives of the Council and it's Partners.