Work has started this week on development of a new £10.3m Enterprise Zone on the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory site just outside Woolavington.
Sedgemoor District Council Leader Duncan McGinty led a ceremony to officially welcome the team behind the project to the district as work starts on the road needed before the 635-acre site can be developed.
Representatives from Gravity – the name for the Innovation Campus that will be built on the site – were joined by the owner, developer and operator Salamanca Group; Sedgemoor District Council, members of the Heart of the South West LEP and several local stakeholders, including representatives from Woolavington Parish Council for the ceremony to mark the beginning of work by Alun Griffiths on a new road linking the site to the A39.
Costing £10.3m, the road is part funded by a grant from the Heart of the South West LEP’s Growth Fund Deal with the remainder contributed by Gravity. It will enable on-site construction to start in Summer 2020 and create a 635 acre Innovation and Clean Growth Campus which is anticipated to generate 4,000 jobs.
The road construction will take 18 months to complete.
Pictured: Groundbreaking Ceremony for Gravity’s new access road: (left to right) Paul Lowndes (Programme Director, Gravity), Eifion Jones (Head of Strategy & Operations, Heart of the South West LEP), Simon Dunn (Operations Director, Alun Griffiths), Peter Johnson, Martin Bellamy (Chairman, Gravity), Lord David Triesman (Director, Gravity), Duncan McGinty (Cllr, Leader of Sedgemoor District Council), Hugh Frost (Director, Gravity), Tom Curtis (Director, Gravity)