High-tech science park clocks up £90m of business
COMPANIES operating out of Sci-Tech Daresbury grew sales by 25% in 2015, delivering more than £90m in sales and creating 87 new jobs at the site.
A survey of 82 companies based at the Cheshire site has revealed they delivered £92.4m in sales during 2015 – a rise of 25% on the previous year.
A total of 21 companies on campus now have sales of more than £1m per year from operations, with six of these having sales upwards of £5m per year.
Seven out of 10 businesses (70%) surveyed were trading overseas and export sales grew from 37% to 41% of total sales, equivalent to £37.9m of sales.
Companies also created a net increase of 87 FTE jobs in 2015. Eight companies are now employing higher level apprentices.
Sci-Tech Daresbury is a private-public joint-venture partnership between developer Langtree, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Halton Borough Council. The site, which has Enterprise Zone status, is home to businesses and globally significant science facilities.
John Downes, chief executive of Langtree and chairman of the Sci-Tech Daresbury joint venture company, said the figures were an encouraging indicator of the continued success of the site.
Downes added: “These figures come at an important time for the campus as we bring forward our new Techspace developments which will see a further 350 jobs created over the coming year.
Techspace Two, a two-storey, self-contained building comprising 10,000 sq ft of modern, flexible office space and best-in-class laboratories, is almost complete.
Work is also progressing on a larger sister building, Techspace One, a three-storey structure with 46,000 q ft of modern office space along with wet and dry laboratory facilities, each on its own floor.
Techspace One is due to finish in the autumn.
The completion of both buildings will see a further 350 jobs created at the campus, which is one of the UK’s leading centres for science and technology businesses.
Together the two buildings are part of a £20m investment into the Enterprise Zone, including development of new public realm and campus infrastructure. The project was supported by the ERDF programme 2007-2013.
Downes said the latest survey figures provided further encouragement for the year ahead, with some 72% of companies forecasting the recruitment of a further potential 186 people during the course of this year.
He added: “We have now seen an average annual 30% sales growth over the past five years, which is a significant achievement.”
