Aycliffe Today Business Aycliffe Today Business issue 33 | Page 21

The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 21
By Martin Walker
Aycliffe Business Park
expansion ramps up
C
ounty Durham’s biggest business
park is on course for further
expansion after it was revealed the
outline planning permission for a
major new development is close to being
submitted.
Durham County Council has already
started the next phase of work to expand
Aycliffe Business Park – already the largest
site of its kind in the region – onto the
55-hectare Forrest Park site.
The site, for which the Local Enterprise
Partnership has provided £13m funding, is
hoped will be the subject of a £140m private
sector investment with the potential to
accommodate a rail freight interchange.
It is estimated Forrest Park could see the
creation of 3,200 jobs across 1.75 million
square feet of development floor space and
deliver a Gross Value Added (GVA) boost of
£495m over the next 10-15 years.
During a meeting of the Aycliffe Business
Park Community, held at Hitachi Rail Europe’s
rail assembling facility, local businesses were
told planning consultants have now been
commissioned and the proposal is expected
to be submitted early this year.
Andy Palmer, the council’s head of
transformation and chair of the joint
venture company behind the Forrest Park
development, told attendees: “A lot of the
groundwork has already been undertaken
and we’re close to submitting a planning
application for the development.
“We already have a lot of interest in the
site, because it is very visual, people can
see the preparatory works that have already
been undertaken, and we’ve already held
discussions with development partners and
we expect things to happen fairly quickly.
“Aycliffe Business Park’s reputation is
getting stronger all the time as an area for
advanced engineering and manufacturing.
Andy Palmer, head of transformation at Durham
County Council and chair of the joint venture
company behind the Forrest Park development,
talks to guests at Aycliffe Business Park
Community’s meeting.
“When completed it will
mean Aycliffe Business Park
will be the largest business
park in the North-East, which
will be a major feather in the
cap for County Durham.”
Aycliffe Business Park is
already home to around 500
companies and an estimated
10,000 employees.
The Forrest Park proposal
will see the creation of three
types of development units
– business, general industrial
and storage or distribution.
Preparatory groundworks
began in late 2016, and the
enabling works are continuing
with the creation of a new traffic light
controlled junction on the A167 – for better
access to both the new site and the business
park.
A graphic shows the proposed
Forrest Park development which
could create 3,200 new jobs.
To find out more about Aycliffe Business Park and future events,
go to aycliffebusinesspark.co.uk
More than 40 people
attended a recent
Aycliffe Business Park
news and networking
event.