The first new building at Longbridge, the site of the shut-down MG Rover works, will be completed late next year

The structure will aim to attract small companies involved in scientific research and development in areas such as nanotechnology.

It will form part of a £100m high technology park being created by local developer St Modwen and regional development agency Advantage West Midlands (AWM). The full planning application for the scheme was submitted in August. It includes residential and retail units, a community centre and doctor’s surgery.

The small companies are likely to benefit from the ability to share facilities. “In four or five years they will be large enough to move to the bigger buildings we will then have in place,” said a spokesman for AWM.

Of the 240-acre site, 70 acres are owned by Nanjing Automotive, which bought the remains of MG Rover’s facilities from its administrators. AWM owns 57 acres and St Modwen owns the rest.

Nanjing has pledged to restart some car production in 2006 but it is understood that the firm is also planning mixed use developments.

The two local developers have also been undertaking £48m worth of infrastructure works, on which Faithful & Gould is the QS, at the Longbridge site since Summer 2004.

Longbridge will form part of the Central Technology Belt, an area being created for technology businesses. The belt stretches from the Black Country north of Birmingham to Malvern, south of the city. It was born out of the first Rover crisis in 2000 and aims to replace jobs lost due to the disappearance of the Midlands’ manufacturing industry.

Source

QS News