Worthing Borough Council: Public-private partnership with London and Continental Railways

Our 'Public-Private Partnerships: Driving Growth, Building Resilience' good practice guide supports councils to establish more effective public-private partnerships, with case studies of partnerships which have delivered high impact outcomes. An example is Worthing Borough Council and London and Continental Railways, who are in a partnership focused on development and regeneration.


Project overview

London and Continental Railways (LCR) and Worthing Borough Council (WBC) are in a public-public partnership focused on development and regeneration. The partnership was formed via a contractual partnership using a land pooling agreement as the basis of the contractual relationship, with both parties making their land ownerships available with each party’s share in the partnership being linked to the respective value of their landholdings. Profits and returns are distributed based on each party’s shareholding.

LCR acts as the development manager for the partnership using their internal expertise and resources to manage the proposals for the development sites. LCR also provides working capital to the partnership to cover site promotion and related consultancy services associated with bringing the sites forward. In return for providing services and working capital LCR will earn a greater equity share in the partnership.

The partnership is initially focused on promoting and realising development on several publicly owned but previously stalled town centre sites. Development of the sites will help realise WBC’s vision for the town centre and the partnership has a clearly defined set of objectives around stimulating the delivery of jobs, homes, and investment.

This partnership will bring forward a key development site in the city centre that the private sector had failed to deliver on its own; delivering 200 homes, commercial space and a cinema to complement the nearby Connaught Theatre.

Key points of learning

Successful implementation of a land pooling model between public sector organisations, which has enabled an enhanced development site without the need for a costly procurement exercise.

It is an example of a council taking control where the market has failed to deliver, or sites have stalled. The partnership benefits from LCR’s commercial delivery expertise, funding and sharing of development risk between the parties on an equity share basis. It allows the public sector to keep control of the type of town centre uses delivered and pace of homes delivery.

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