14 | Aycliffe Today Business
2015
REVIEW
Aycliffe Today editor Martin Walker reviews what was a busy and very
encouraging 2015 for Aycliffe Business Park with some of the year’s highlights...
January
• Hitachi starts shipment of the first
completed Prototype of the pre-series
Class 800 train from Tokyo to its new £82m
train-assembling factory in Newton Aycliffe,
which is still in the process of being built at
this point.
• Aycliffe family firm Stiller Warehousing
and Distribution announces a new £15m,
five-year deal with major multinational
food packaging firm Coveris Rigid UK, with
Stiller managing Coveris Rigid’s newlypurchased Drum Park, on Drum Industrial
Estate in Chester-le-Street.
• Aycliffe fabrication company Premo
Fabrications celebrates the end of its fifth
year by hitting the £5m-mark.
County Plan drawn up by Durham Council
is left in tatters after a report by planning
Inspector Harold Stephens labelled them
“unrealistic, flawed and undeliverable”.
• It’s confirmed construction of the North
East’s first University Technical College
(UTC) will begin in Newton Aycliffe in
September 2015, at Long Tens Way on
Aycliffe Business Park.
March
• Hitachi Rail Europe’s first pre-series
Class 800 train for the Intercity Express
Programme (IEP) arrives in the UK as Rail
Minister Claire Perry celebrates the arrival
of the carriage at the Port of Southampton.
February
• Business Minister in the House of Lords,
Baroness Neville-Rolfe, visits Newton
Aycliffe appliances manufacturer Ebac to
learn how a Regional Growth Fund grant is
supporting its new production line, which
will deliver the only UK made washing
machines on the market.
• Aycliffe construction firm Raisco lands a
multi-million-pound agreement to build
new stores for Lidl, one of the largest food
retailers in Europe.
• A team of councillors are impressed by
plans to create a permanent memorial
to the Aycliffe Angels at one of the Royal
Ordnance Factories on Aycliffe Business
Park after visiting the former Presswork
Metals factory, which is set to be
converted into a new leisure facility.
• Two Aycliffe businesswomen – Liz Lambert
and Nicola Maull – set up a new website,
Prom & Wedding, selling specialist dresses
online.
• The much-celebrated multi-billion pound
May
• Tributes are paid to well-known and muchloved Xcel Church Pastor Pamela Greenow,
who died peacefully on April 29.
• Aycliffe construction company Finley
Structures is awarded a multi-million
pound, 2,300-tonne contract from
Shepherd Construction to help construct
the £650m Victoria Gate shopping
development in Leeds.
• An 80-tonne piece of steel designed to
turn train carriages around is installed at
Hitachi Rail E \