British Land is preparing to rescue a major redevelopment of Luton town centre from Irish investor Ballymore.
It is in discussions with Ballymore over the stalled £200m Power Court retail scheme in the Bedfordshire town.
Ballymore, which has had many of its loans transferred to Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency, has been seeking to sell its landholdings in Luton since autumn 2010.
Land Securities and Capital & Counties are both said to have held discussions with the Irish investor before BL moved to the front of the queue in the final weeks of last year.
Ballymore owns 30-40% of the 21-acre Power Court site and has an option on another parcel of land owned by a private landlord. The remainder of the site is owned by Luton council and the Environment Agency.
Ballymore confirmed that talks were ongoing but said the deal was “conditional on site assembly issues being resolved”.
The developer first drew up plans for the site in 2005, which included a 700,000 sq ft covered shopping centre.
The proposals were rejected by the council, however, which claimed that the scheme could have a negative effect on shopping in the rest of Luton.
Revised plans, comprising an open scheme of 500,000 sq ft plus 200 homes, were expected to be resubmitted in 2008 but never materialised.
Colin Chick, head of regeneration at Luton council, is backing BL’s involvement. He said: “From our perspective, it is good. BL is a serious player, cash-rich and with a good understanding of the site, warts and all.
“It is sympathetic to the issues and problems we have raised in the past. We were keen not to see a scheme that was that independent and inward-facing and would suck the life out of the rest of the town centre. British Land is taking a similar view.”
Sources said that they expected any new plans to be integrated into the council-backed Station Quarter development.
BL declined to comment.
