Kaman in talks over Burnley engineering park
US-based aerospace components manufacturer Kaman is close to signing up as the anchor tenant at a 37-acre advanced engineering park in Burnley.
Nelson-based Barnfield Construction has taken on the former Michelin site and plans to relaunch it as an aerospace supply chain “village”.
Kaman Tooling is part of the Kaman Corporation which has around 5,000 staff. It employs 400 people in the UK at sites in Hyde and Darwen, where it acquired aerospace firm Brookhouse in a £43m deal five years ago.
If Kaman does sign up, it’s not yet clear how many staff will move to the new park and what this will mean for its existing facilities.
Barnfield is now on site refurbishing an existing building to provide 4,000 sq ft of offices and plans to build a 60,000 sq ft production facility which it hopes Kaman will take on. The site has the capacity to accommodate up to 400,000 sq ft of commercial and industrial space. Barnfield says there has been interest in over half this space by local businesses.
Managing director Tim Webber said: “We are delighted that after just three months of marketing the site we have received three strong leads with Kaman Tooling set to be the flagship tenants.”
Guy Thomas, Kaman’s UK managing director, said: “our current investment and growth plan has meant that our tooling business has outgrown its existing manufacturing footprint.
“We continue to negotiate a move to the Michelin site where the new facility would allow us to invest in machinery, provide security for our existing workforce and create additional jobs. Working with Barnfield provides us with a great opportunity to design a purpose built state of the art facility that would enable us to meet all of our future business needs.”
