Universities are holding back on making major investment decisions due to prolonged uncertainty over the future of both the UK’s position after it has left the EU and student numbers under any fresh government immigration programme.

Speaking at the London Property Club, Jeremy Tanner, Director of Estates at Birkbeck, University of London said: “What is going on in the wider sector is that in the past few years behaviours have changed. [emaillocker id=”71749″]

“I think there’s quite a lot of disruption and sector at the moment and in terms of decision-making behaviour, I suspect many universities now are not looking to make decisions beyond the short to medium term on major investments […]

“If I represent the view of some of the smaller ones [universities], I think that pressure and uncertainty, I shan’t say the word [Brexit] as there are other things going on. But I do see the change in student number cap, and I know that that is a big worry, because it’s it is really mixing up the sector.”

Mr Tanner’s comments come as a number of UK universities begin looking at their estate programmes for the coming decade. Peter Ward, Director of Real Estate Development at Kings College London, who is also jointly appointed with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital said his institution was focusing on the healthcare sector. The collaboration between the University and three London healthcare in creating a global hub for pharmaceutical companies in the UK was a key priority for the next decade.

He said: “Clusters have been long established in North America as centres of expertise as they grow, what they do is very well recognised. When we talk to pharmaceutical companies and industrial collaborators, they come to London and see that there is simply not enough [real] estate to make that kind of opportunity.”

Kings College London commissioned JLL to research what makes successful clusters, which found access to talent as well as locations which allow the merging of different sectors provide the blueprint for success.

According to Mr Ward, Kings College London spends £90m a year on routine capital projects, with the cost per sq ft higher than what is spent on equivalent buildings in the private sector. The University expects to build around 2m sq ft over the next 20 to 25 years, with another 3m sq ft at Guys and St Thomas.  He added that the university is looking at how they can build facilities that last decades rather than ones that become outdated quickly.

“We’re still finding that we’re designing buildings based on how much money we have available. And based on what we currently do, for one that transpired to be usable for one thing, and one thing only, and frequently obsolete by the time they’re commissioned.

“And so we’re trying to move away from that principle of just developing what we currently foresee as our immediate need, and start thinking about what sort of buildings will we need over the next 60 years, what components of that do we think are really important in terms of how they’re designed, and then let’s think about how we’re going to fit them out in broadly 10 or 15 year chunks, so that we’re not then making discovering that we’ve got a massive cost associated with then developing them as our needs change.”

Francesca Fryer, Director of Estates at University College London says that a core part of her mandate is to tackle inefficiency within the facility’s estate. “We have over 300,000 sq m of academic space but this is actually split over 270 buildings. There is inefficiency in that I think we can all agree. ”

UCL is currently halfway through a £1.2bn investment programme in the university estate which includes updated existing buildings and constructing new facilities. One of the projects which has come to fruition in this time is the new student centre, which according to Ms Fryer is the first academic building which does not include any teaching rooms.

According to Ms Fryer students were involved in the design from the beginning.  It’s been built to and fitted out to what the students wanted.  She said: “They [students] have been integral to the development of this building. When we opened it, I was I was relatively new to the institution and I thought that you know, maybe they [students] won’t know how to use it. First of all, as soon as we cut the ribbon, thousand students were in that building, working. And there have been 1000 students in that building working ever since. The occupancy charts are off the scale.”

UCL is one of the founding members of the vast development at the Olympic alongside the Victoria & Albert Museum, the BBC and the London School of Fashion. UCL will see a 35,000 sq m interdisciplinary building at the space, which forms part of the former London 2012 Olympic site.

Ms Fryer added: “We are the founder partners in the scheme, which is here to not only deliver a great legacy in the Olympic park, but to drive engagement and social as well as economic regeneration in East London. [/emaillocker]