PICTURES BY CHRIS BOOTH
YOUR NEXT STOP …
Is Station Place . Phase two of Merchant Park is ready to start welcoming new and expanding businesses to modern , environmentally-friendly units on Aycliffe Business Park . Peter Barron talks to two men at the heart of the development …
It ’ s a moment Adrian Goodall remembers well … the day Prime Minister David Cameron officially opened the £ 82m Hitachi Rail factory at Newton Aycliffe , heralding the arrival of one of the North-East ’ s most important industrial developments in recent times .
Adrian was among the hundreds of guests who gathered for the opening ceremony , having been asked to manage the ongoing development of Merchant Park , the 65-acre site which had become Hitachi ’ s home .
He ’ d been drafted in by Geoff Hunton , director of Merchant Anglo , and the man largely credited with playing a pivotal role in bringing the train assembly plant , along with hundreds of high-quality jobs , to Aycliffe .
“ Where do we go from here ?” was Geoff ’ s question , and it proved to be one of the biggest challenges in Adrian ’ s career .
Now , seven years and four prime ministers on from that momentous day in September 2015 , the question has been answered in style , with the completion of Station Place – phase two of Merchant Park , a £ 4.8m scheme to provide 50,503 square feet of new industrial space for start-ups and growing businesses in Aycliffe and the surrounding areas .
“ There have been some bumps in the road along the way but it ’ s really satisfying to see it come to fruition and offer something shiny and new for Aycliffe Business Park ,” says Adrian , who grew up in Hartlepool as the son of an ICI engineer and went on to launch his own business , Rokeby Developments , in Newcastle , in 1994 .
The ‘ bumps in the road ’ he refers to were principally Brexit and Covid-19 , both of which conspired to stall the original development plans , and lead to a strategic rethink .
“ It was hoped at the beginning that Hitachi would be the catalyst for further large industrial development , and we had a number of significant enquiries , a lot of which were European . Then , Brexit happened , and they disappeared overnight , including an Italian tomato processing plant ,” recalls Adrian .
“ It was also hoped at the time that Hitachi would go on to build a second phase of its own but that was also affected . The result of it all was to have a big head-scratch , we reviewed the best way forward , and we came to the conclusion that we had to focus on the local market .”
The solution was to build 10 high-spec , well-insulated , low energy business units , with super-fast fibre
The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 17