Bridge unlocks East Lancs industrial site

Eric Wright Construction has finished installing the new bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool canal to open up the forthcoming Burnley Bridge Business Park being developed by Eshton at Junction 9 of the M65.

James Chapman, managing director of Eshton, said: "This is a very significant landmark in the development of our quality business park. It opens up the site from the motorway, which allows potential occupiers to see exactly what we are creating here.

"These are exciting times at Burnley Bridge. As well as the infrastructure going in, a 64,100 sq ft warehouse building is being comprehensively refurbished, providing a superb base for a logistics or industrial occupier, and 29,000 sq ft of speculative new units are being built. These will be ready for occupiers to move into in February.

"Cobalt, the warehouse, is being stripped back to its steel frame and then reclad to satisfy the requirements of the 21st century. The speculative industrial units are being built in two blocks, with sizes ranging from 3,000 sq ft to 19,000 sq ft."

The project received a European Regional Development Fund grant of £3.85m. Chapman said that there had already been a good deal of interest in Burnley Bridge from potential occupiers.

He added: "Significantly, some larger occupiers have been looking at the site and some have been enquiring about a unit in excess of 500,000 sq ft. There aren't any other sites in the East Lancashire region where you could build something like that, especially with access straight onto the motorway network."

The agents for Burnley Bridge are Dove Haigh Phillips of Leeds and Trevor Dawson of Blackburn and Burnley.

The bridge spans 18m and is 13.3m wide. There were a total of 12 bridge beams used in the construction, 10 inner ones weighing 17 tonnes each and 2 outer ones weighing 54.5 tonnes each. A 500-tonne crane lifted the centre beams on Tuesday and a 1,000 tonne crane was used on Wednesday for the outer beams. Baldwins Crane Hire handled the lifts.