The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

06 February 2009

 

The NDA’s Socio-Economic Committee has agreed an investment totalling £2.5 million for two projects to develop an Industrial Park and Business Incubation Centre at Chapelcross.

The first project will see the NDA award £1.5 million paid in three tranches of £0.5m over the next three financial years to help develop the industrial park on an 18 acre plot of land owned by the NDA but outside of the Chapelcross nuclear licensed site.

The site was previously used as an airfield but has been idle for over 30 years. The money will be used for land remediation, building the infrastructure and landscaping what will be known as the Chapelcross Industry Park. The park will have the potential to provide a total of 170,000 sq ft of light industrial space along with 60,000 sq ft of commercial office accommodation, dependant on level of demand.

Improvements to the sewage, electrical supply and transport infrastructure will be part of the development which will also contain environmental enhancements including an ecological area to support wildlife and flora as well as embracing green building standards where appropriate.

The second project to benefit will receive a £1 million investment from the NDA for the development of a Business Incubation Centre on the new Chapelcross Industry Park.

Incubation centres provide start-up and growing businesses with the supporting environment they need to succeed. In this case that would be 20,000 sq ft of high quality commercial office space, intensive business support, access to financial and legal advice and access to other entrepreneurs and suppliers.

As well as the £1 million from the NDA, a private sector business incubation developer has been in preliminary discussions to partner in the development.

Bob Churchill, NDA’s Head of Stakeholder Relations and Socio-economic Development said

“This investment will boost the economy of the Gretna-Lockerbie-Annan corridor, bringing significant benefits for the local community. Not only will it attract new businesses into the area but it will also help local entrepreneurs to expand existing businesses and develop new enterprises through the establishment of the business incubation centre”.

David Gass, Scottish Enterprise’s Regional Director for the South of Scotland said

“This is welcome news for the area and we look forward to meeting with the NDA and the other stakeholders to consider how the opportunity can be progressed”.

Cllr Ian Lindsay, Chairman of the Chapelcross Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) said

"These two projects were developed by a Socio-Economic Sub-Group of the Chapelcross SSG and I am absolutely delighted that our endeavours over the last two years in developing these bids have resulted in an award from the NDA of £2.5M, which will allow for the creation of two transformational economic projects within the Gretna - Lockerbie - Annan area."