As part of the rationalisation of the National Health Service a decision had been taken to consolidate the two Surrey based Health Authorities of East and West Surrey with their counterparts in East and West Sussex.

The new overall authority was to become the SurreySussex Health Authority, under the direction of a new Chief Executive, and based at a new, yet to be decided, headquarters office location suitably positioned to service Surrey and Sussex but also readily accessible to central London.

We were contacted by the Finance Director of the West Surrey Authority and asked to submit a competitive tender proposal to handle a project to recommend the best location options for the new overall HQ and to then search for and acquire suitable premises. We were advised the new HQ would need to accommodate the new Chief Executive and his team - with a maximum capacity of 50 people all told.

• Our tender was successful and we met the Finance Director and his team for a briefing and to review the details of the programme of work required to satisfy their requirement and deliver within the timetable and the deadlines which had been set.
• We first developed a list of location and accessibility related key criteria any new office base would need to satisfy and drew up a list of all the locations which might fit such criteria. This enabled us to identify the overall area within which to carry out our searches.
• Using this starting point we then contacted all the commercial agents and relevant agencies in order to gather information on all available 'qualifying' offices within the search area. We visited and examined all the identified offices and drew up an initial short list which was provided to and discussed with the SurreySussex team.
• This short list was then reduced to six offices which we arranged to visit with the key decision makers in the team (including the new Chairwoman and Chief Executive. Each office was inspected both externally and internally and resulted in the final two being selected on an either/or basis.
• We were instructed to negotiate terms with the agents on these final options in order that the best deal could be considered. After a protracted and intensive period of negotiation we were able to agree a very successful and commercially attractive deal on York House in Horley.
• York House satisfied all the criteria we had established at the outset - it being a new and attractive detached office building with generous car parking and situated within 15 minutes drive of Gatwick train station and airport. In addition, being on the borders of Surrey and Sussex, it also provided easy and direct access to all the hospital establishments within both counties.