Vanguard House completed
Work on the 36,000 sq ft office and laboratory building at Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus in Halton has been finished.
The £8.5m building was funded by the North West Development Agency and will be owned and managed by the Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus, which is a private-public sector joint venture between Langtree, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Halton Council, launched in 2004.
Vanguard House is a three-storey property with units ranging from 1,010 to 2,486 sq ft and is the third building in the Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus joint venture portfolio, joining the Cockcroft Institute and Daresbury Innovation Centre. The building has also achieved an excellent BREEAM rating.
John Downes, chairman of Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus and managing director at Langtree, said: "The campus exists to support the growth of high-tech companies through innovation and collaboration and Vanguard House will further strengthen our position at the forefront of the regional and national knowledge community.
"This facility will provide an essential platform for cutting-edge enterprises, both from within and outside the Campus, to extend their networks and find new opportunities for development and investment."
"There is already a buzz about Vanguard House and we have had numerous enquiries from innovative firms in fields such as biomedical technologies, digital solutions and instrumentation. The broad variety of high quality companies interested in the building gives us great confidence that Vanguard House will be as successful as the other buildings on the Campus."
Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus was one of 11 enterprise zones announced by the Treasury in August, following a successful bid submitted jointly by the two local enterprise partnerships of Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester.
The campus is also one of only two national science and innovation campuses established to help commercialise scientific research and attract inward investment, with the other being Harwell in Oxfordshire. Each campus creates access to science facilities and expertise, provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Daresbury is home to more than 100 companies employing 400 staff.
In October 2010, developer Langtree was selected by Halton Council, the North West Development Agency and the Science & Technology Facilities Council to deliver 1m sq ft of commercial space over the next 20 years.
The funding for Vanguard House takes the total NWDA investment on the campus to over £67m.
