Jobs promised in multi-million pound extension plan at Black Country industrial estate
The owner of the biggest industrial estate in the Black Country has unveiled multi-million pound plans for a massive 260,000 sq ft expansion that could potentially create hundreds of new jobs in the area.
London & Cambridge Properties (LCP) plans to extend Pensnett Estate, Kingswinford, with a series of warehouse and industrial units.
The plans for the first phase of the development, comprising 130,000 sq ft, have just been submitted to Dudley Council.
LCP is a major UK property and development company with its own headquarters on the Pensnett Estate. Among its Black Country sites it owns the Wulfrun shopping centre in Wolverhampton.
Its Pensnett site is one of the biggest secure business estates in Europe, home to 170 businesses in more than 2.4 million sq fit of commercial space.
The first phase of work will create four blocks of factory and warehousing units on land behind LCP's headquarters on First Avenue.
If Dudley's planning committee gives the development the go ahead, work could start as early as the end of this year, with an anticipated completion date of late 2017.
Andrew Preston, industrial portfolio manager at LCP, said the substantial investment would enable businesses looking for industrial or warehouse units of 10,000 sq ft and above to move into premium buildings on an established, secure estate.
"We have decided to press ahead with phase 1 of this speculative development due to void levels being so low on the estate, and enquiries for businesses looking to relocate onto the estate being encouragingly high," he said.
The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (BCLEP) has been supporting LCP with the development, having already received Site Investigation Funding.
The enterprise partnership and LCP are now working together to obtain next stage gap funding to bring the site to market.
The LEP is the area's organisation of local council chiefs and business leaders with the job of creating more jobs and economic development in the Black Country. The LCP proposal is seen as attracting new businesses and investment to the area.
It will be the second development that the company has built on the industrial estate in recent years.
Two years ago, it opened the £1.5 million Progress Point, an industrial and warehouse development comprising 21,000 sq ft of high quality warehouse and industrial space.
