Over the last two years our development company, EquaGroup has been transforming a 24,500 sq ft commercial office building in Crawley, Surrey into 53 apartments, using Permitted Development Rights for 44 apartments and full planning permission for an additional floor accommodating 9 further units.
The office building had been vacant for almost four years prior to our acquisition in 2018 and had become a target for habitual drug use and rough sleeping. We employed a specialist decontamination team to clear the building of well over 5,000 items of drug paraphernalia, including almost 2,000 hypodermic needles, before the strip out works could formally commence.
The resonance of this anti-social behaviour in the local community was further compounded when taking into account the adjacent residential properties creating a serious and challenging societal issue. I certainly don’t raise this situation with any form of judgement, just a stark illustration of some of the distinct challenges our communities face at a local and granular level.
As seasoned property developers we have seen the jubilation and witnessed first-hand the wonderful transformations that can happen when converting and repurposing existing buildings and the results can truly be spectacular. However, I believe we also have a responsibility to consider the wider ramifications to society. Taking this example in Crawley, we can be proud of the great commercial to residential conversion that we have achieved. However, we decided to pause for thought and consider what have we actually done to assist in solving the problem in society – or have we simply moved the drug and rough sleeping problem down the road for others to solve?
Our Equa organisation (including EquaAcademy & EquaGroup) is based on Creating Shared Values, principles that are embedded in our constitution and ethos and permeate through everything we do. As an early adopter of ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) over the last 15 years we had to find a way to engage not only our skills, experience and capacity to develop property, but also to contribute back to society in a deep and impactful way.
