How Aycliffe Business Park evolved from the ashes of World War II
EIGHTY
YEARS ON …
Martin Walker looks back on eight decades of Aycliffe Business Park …
Aycliffe Business Park emanates from World War II – with its original buildings , ammunitions factories , built in 1941 . The 867-acre group of buildings was named Royal Ordnance Factory 59 – one of several around the country – which were designed to manufacture bombs and bullets for the war effort .
The marshy location at Aycliffe was ideal , as the site was shrouded in fog and mist for much of the year providing cover against bombing by the Luftwaffe .
ROF 59 , which was visited by then Prime Minister Winston Churchill , employed more than 17,000 people , mainly women , from the surrounding area , who risked their lives every day , filling shells and bullets and assembling detonators and fuses .
By its nature the work was very dangerous and many workers were killed and injured during the manufacturing process .
The people who worked there became known as the Aycliffe Angels after English Language propaganda broadcasts by Lord Haw Haw ( William Joyce ), a traitor who worked for the Nazis during World War II .
“ The Little angels of Aycliffe won ’ t get away with it ,” he had said in numerous broadcasts , highlighting the importance of
Then Prime Minister David Cameron officially opened Hitachi ’ s new factory on Aycliffe Business Park seven years ago . PICTURE BY MARTIN WALKER
their work , before insisting the Luftwaffe would bomb them into submission .
A permanent memorial was placed in Newton Aycliffe town centre commemorating the Aycliffe Angels ’ efforts , while there ’ s a small museum within the Ineos factory on the business park .
After the war it was decided to turn the site into an industrial estate . Sixty firms set up there , and by August 1946 they employed some 6,000 workers , as the new town of
Newton Aycliffe began to grow in the 1960s . Since then – and particularly more recently – the business park ’ s image as a place of heavy industry has very much evolved .
Its name – Aycliffe Industrial Estate – was replaced by the more modern Aycliffe Business Park a little over 10 years ago to reflect the changing face of the site .
While engineering and manufacturing remain at the core of Aycliffe Business Park ,
14 | Aycliffe Business