A stack of factory-made modular labs, with a roof terrace and grass growing on top, has sprung up at Canada Water in south-east London and is due to open in late May.
With growing demand for lab space, the company behind them, British Land, is also unveiling plans for a large new research building on Monday, part of a nascent life sciences cluster south of the Thames.
The FTSE 100 property developer and the Australian pension fund AustralianSuper have appointed London-based Stanton Williams Architects to design a 300,000 square foot life sciences building, the size of five football pitches. It will house wet labs that can handle various types of chemicals, and other research and development facilities.
Stanton Williams recently completed a research centre for Great Ormond Street hospital in London and won the Stirling Prize for its Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge, an independently funded research institute within the School of Biological Sciences.
There is an acute shortage of lab space in the “golden triangle” – Oxford, Cambridge and London – prompting British Land to create 30,000 sq ft (2,800 sq metres) of modular lab space in Canada Water, against the backdrop of the Canary Wharf towers.
The fully kitted-out labs, made from steel and composite materials, are bolted together and stacked – like a Meccano set, according to Emma Cariaga, joint head of Canada Water at British Land. They are manufactured by Premier Modular in east Yorkshire.
Called the Paper Yard, the labs have taken just nine months to build and will be ready by the end of May. British Land is talking to a number of life science firms interested in taking space. Cariaga said there could be a single let by a larger company, but it was more likely that between six and 10 startups would rent the new labs.
She said British Land could easily add more modular labs, potentially doubling or tripling the space, depending on demand.
According to data from Cushman & Wakefield, property supply in the golden triangle of science hubs “remained constrained in 2022”, and while construction on 2m sq ft of new lab space is expected to start over the next year, this won’t be finished until 2025-6.
The life sciences scheme forms part of British Land’s massive £5.6bn regeneration project in Rotherhithe, just south of a bend in the River Thames. It is building a new London neighbourhood across 21.4 hectares (53 acres), with up to 3,000 new homes and offices with space for 20,000 workers.
“There’s scope for bringing life sciences south of the river,” said Cariaga, adding that the scheme would benefit from its proximity to three leading teaching and research hospitals – Guy’s hospital in London Bridge; St Thomas’ hospital in Waterloo and King’s College hospital in Denmark Hill.
On the other side of the Thames, Canary Wharf Group, which has turned vast swathes of wasteland in east London’s docklands into a new financial centre in recent decades, has also voiced ambitions for a life sciences cluster. In December it received planning consent to build a 23-storey tower with 60% lab space, and hopes to attract small biotech firms.
“There’s huge demand for battery tech in London as there is for genuine life sciences and biotech,” said Cariaga. “Canada Water is interesting for all of those sorts of organisations because we’ve got this ability to allow them to grow with us. I know that all of those businesses want space that they can have today.
“The challenge with the UK is that lots of people are talking about life sciences but if you ask for availability of lab space in London in 2023, there is still a chronic shortage. The modular campus allows for some immediate solutions and time for us all to evaluate where growth is going forward.”
The projects are a boost to London’s life sciences sector, with other clusters centred around the Francis Crick Institute in King’s Cross, in Paddington, and White City in west London.
The UK government has repeatedly declared its ambition to turn Britain into a life sciences superpower, but the pharma industry has warned that clinical trials are being moved abroad, as it fights a battle to reduce the annual rebates it pays the NHS. GSK boss Emma Walmsley recently said the UK was at a “tipping point”.
