South Yorkshire sees investment near £1bn
FORMER coal mining sites are helping to spearhead investment of around £1bn in South Yorkshire.
New figures show that despite the recession, Rotherham has seen a steady flow of development with almost 2,000 jobs either created or safeguarded and tens of millions of pounds invested between April and July this year alone.
Five major current developments represent about £1bn of investment in the borough, and many hundreds, potentially thousands, of jobs according to Rotherham Investment & Development Office (RiDO).
The borough has seen job cuts by clothing group Burberry and steel group Corus, but RiDO, which is the borough council’s regeneration arm, said that since April 149 companies have either moved into the area or relocated, expanded or started up in the borough creating 908 jobs safeguarding a further 978.
RiDO has worked with 27 of the companies and helped in roughly a third of the jobs.
New investments have included 100 new jobs created by medical products group Sandvik, 60 by Dormer Tools and 95 at a new £10m distribution centre for Pegler Group
The council’s Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Planning and Transportation, Cllr Gerald Smith, said commercial confidentiality made it difficult to put a precise figure on the level of investment, but it was significant. “What’s also significant,” he said, “is that a lot of it is coming from national and international companies.”
The major developments are primarily of four former coalfield sites – Manvers and Cortonwood, in the north of the borough, the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley, near the western boundary with Sheffield, and Dinnington, in the south. A fifth is at the former steel rolling mill, at Templeborough. All are located close to the M1.
Manvers and Cortonwood account jointly for about £600m of investment, as does the forecast for the AMP.
South Yorkshire-based St Paul’s Developments and Anglo-Dutch TCN UK are behind projects at Manvers which represent £300m of investment.
The Advanced Manufacturing Park continues to be developed and to win occupiers. A joint venture between the landowners, UK Coal, and developer Strategic Sites created UK-Strategic Partnership, which helped attract Swedish giant Dormer Tools.
Dinnington now has a business park, developed by Yorkshire Forward with the help of Government and EU funding.
At Templeborough, a couple of minutes of the M1’s J34, Jaguar Estates and Strategic Sites have created two new neighbouring business parks, next to the Metropolitan Borough Council’s business centre, Fusion@Magna – together representing at least £37m.
At the other end of the scale, Rotherham’s four purpose-built business centres, aimed mainly at start-up and small and growing companies, are playing an important role in helping that seed-corn of the economy.
Built by the council and run by RiDO, they offer entrepreneurs everything from business advisers’ free practical support to admin and other back-up, letting them get on with business.
