Sigma completes Countryside Properties sale

REGENERATION specialist Sigma InPartnership has completed the sale of the six-acre ‘Top Streets’ area of Higher Broughton in Salford to Countryside Properties.

The area, once the site of more than 200 terraced houses, has been cleared through compulsory purchase orders as part of the Pathfinder housing market renewal programme. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

Some 80 three, four and six-bed homes are now planned for the site which has been renamed Kings Square.

Cash from the sale will go to the partnership which includes Sigma, Salford City Council and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

It controls around 30 acres of redevelopment land with Sigma earning a management fee for running the development programme.

The quoted group told shareholders the Countryside Properties sale had triggered fees and a share in the value of the housing units currently estimated at £700,000. Of this, base fees of £350,000 are payable over the next two years as the houses are sold, including £250,000 in the next 12 months.

The balance of £350,000 will accrue in the form of cash or shared equity. Some of the housing units will be sold via a shared equity arrangement, with value realised either when the houses are sold by the initial purchaser or on the 10th anniversary of the purchase of the property.

In the next 15 months, Sigma expects its Salford Partnership to generate £600,000. This includes fees from the Newbury Place healthcare and retail scheme for which Sigma received £300,000. Sigma said it is now working up appraisals the Hanover Court development site in Higher Broughton.

Chief executive Graham Barnet said: “In April, we announced that we had obtained planning permission for the construction of 80 new homes in Higher Broughton in Salford, and now the sale of the six-acre site to Countryside Properties, who will start construction of the new homes, triggers the fees that are due to Sigma as a partner of the Salford Partnership. We will also share in the value of the housing units as they are sold to buyers.

“The construction of these new homes will represent further delivery on Salford City Council’s regeneration objectives for the Higher Broughton area, and we are working with the Council to expand the scale of the regeneration opportunity within the Salford Partnership, with the Council injecting further assets for us to develop.”