Access road to Cumbria business park ‘to open in December’
Work on a new access road for Waterfront Business Park, currently under construction in Barrow-in-Furness, is expected to be completed by December this year.
The Harding Rise road will not only serve the business park but has also been designed to remove traffic from residential areas of the Barrow Island community.
The road forms part of phase two of Waterfront Business Park which is being led by Barrow Vision, backed by Cumbria County Council, developers Carillion and designers Capita Symonds.
Construction of the Harding Rise access road started at the end of last year and was due to be completed this month.
A spokesperson for the scheme said: "The aim is to have the road finished and open by December but we hope it will be before then."
The £9.98m funding needed to purchase land from BAE Systems adjacent to Egerton Court, build the access road, and build a number of new allotments has been provided by the North West Development Agency and the other half by the European Regional Development Fund programme.
Figures released last month showed work to build the new access road and provide replacement allotments at the Barrow Island site has generated £438,455 in local spend, the value of contracts with 23 local companies, and that half of the 32 workers currently on site live in Barrow and surrounding area.
Work to create Ramsden Business Park, the first phase on the Waterfront Business Park development, generated more than £3m in local spend and exceeded targets for employment, with 31 jobs created. Seventeen local firms have also helped to deliver the project.
Plots on Ramsden Business Park are currently being marketed by local enterprise agency Furness Enterprise, which has received more than a hundred enquiries from companies based across the world.
The second element of the £200m Waterfront Barrow-in-Furness development, Marina Village, includes 650 new homes, a 350-berth marina, hotel, restaurants, bars, retail space, sports ground and nature reserve built on 90 acres of redundant dockland.
Barrow Vision is currently working with Carlisle-based developers Story Group on Marina Village with the aim of starting work over the next twelve months.
Phase two of Waterfront Business Park, the second of three, is expected to be completed by February 2010.
