Momentum builds at Burnley Bridge
ESHTON Group is looking to appoint a contractor to deliver the first phase of its £50m Burnley Bridge Business Park scheme at Padiham, east Lancashire.
The firm’s subsidiary, Shawbrook Developments, has set a deadline of Friday for bids to redevelop a 62,250 sq ft warehouse building and to build 29,000 sq ft of speculative new units on the 70-acre park.
The work is due to start in the summer following construction of a new road bridge that will link from J9 of the M65 motorway over the Leeds-Liverpool canal and into the heart of the 70-acre park. It is anticipated that work on the bridge, which recently received £3.85m of European Regional Development Funding, will start in April.
James Chapman, managing director of Yorkshire-based Eshton Group, told TheBusinessDesk.com that the building which is being refurbished will largely be stripped back to its steel frame and then re-clad to ensure that it fits with the requirements of likely occupiers from the industrial and/or logistics sectors. It was originally built by the Ministry of Defence during the war but had more recently been used by Hepworth Building Products for manufacturing pipes.
Mr Chapman said that timetabling of future phases of the development was difficult, as the make-up of the site will depend on the enquiries it receives.
“It has to be market-led. For example, there are areas that larger occupiers have been looking at the site, and some are asking about a unit in excess of 500,000 sq ft,” he said.
“There aren’t too many sites in this area where you could build something like that.”
For more on the Burnley Bridge scheme, click here.
