Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 15
into a leisure facility continue – while the
name of the new venue is revealed as ROF
59, standing for Royal Ordnance Factory
59.
• Aycliffe firm Stiller Warehousing and
Distribution officially open its new state-ofthe-art, 40,000 sq ft warehousing facility,
costing £1.1m.
July
• Councillors give the green light for a solar
farm to be built near Aycliffe Business Park.
The application, by Lightsource Renewable
Energy, is to convert two fields off School
Aycliffe Lane into a solar farm that would
generate enough electricity to power 1,200
homes.
• Durham County councillors vote
unanimously in favour of the region’s first
University Technical College (UTC) to be
built in Newton Aycliffe – the £10m UTC
South Durham.
• Great Aycliffe Town Council agrees a deal
with Durham County Council to save a
stretch of lights along the A167.
• Hitachi wins a £360m government contract
to deliver and maintain 29 high speed
trains for the London-Cornwall route.
August
• Eight Apprentices at Gestamp Tallent
are handed their permanent contracts of
employment during a special presentation.
Aycliffe’s biggest employer also handed
certificates to eight other members of staff
who complete advanced manufacturing
programmes as part of the firm’s efforts to
keep employees fully trained.
• The new £1.1m ROF 59 activity centre is
officially opened on the site of one of the
former World War II munitions factories on
Aycliffe Business Park. Finley Leisure boss
John Finley is pictured outside the new
facility.
• Aycliffe-based online retailer Modern Rugs
is awarded the title of ‘Best Online Retailer
2015’ by Interiors Monthly Magazine.
September
• Hitachi Rail Europe’s new £82m trainassembling factory is officially opened on
Aycliffe Business Park by Prime Minister
David Cameron and Chancellor George
Osborne.
• Newton Aycliffe FC sign a club record
sponsorship deal with Mantis Media
and Aycliffe Today for the new Northern
League season. The Aycliffe-based media
firm agrees to sponsor the club’s home
and away strips as well as the players’
tracksuits for the 2015-16 campaign.
Services helps to construct the biggest
house ever to feature on Channel 4’s
popular TV show Grand Designs.
• Stiller Warehousing and Distribution
creates seven new jobs after giving its
distribution system an overhaul – four new
forklift drivers and three office employees
are recruited.
• His Royal Highness Prince Edward, the
Duke of Kent, visits Aycliffe to mark the
official launch of Ebac’s £7m washing
machine production line.
• Renowned North East commercial law
firm Whitehead and Low Solicitors LLP
announces it is setting up a specialist
employment law office on Aycliffe
Business Park.
• The former Thrislington Partitions building
on Aycliffe Business Park – which closed in
2008 with the loss of 60 jobs – is brought
back to life by manufacturing company
Premo Fabrications thanks to a £750,000
expansion, creating 20 new jobs – boosting
Premo’s ranks to 49 staff.
• OneGym, which has an establishment
on Aycliffe Business Park, announces an
expansion plan to open a new gym at
Redcar.
• A huge trampoline park opens in Aycliffe
as part of exciting new activity centre
ROF 59 activity centre, consisting of 75
trampolines, including free running areas
and a slam dunk.
• Construction work officially starts on the
North East’s first University Technical
College in Newton Aycliffe. The £10m
UTC South Durham, an engineering
and advanced manufacturing Centre of
Excellence, is due to open in September
2016