Work starts on £17.8m Project Violet

Contractor Willmott Dixon has started building the 42,000 sq ft speculative office scheme at Sci-Tech Daresbury, south-west of Warrington, after the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority invested £8.4m in the project. 

A £2.5m loan from the combined authority’s £25m Urban Development Fund, together with £5.9m from its Chrysalis Fund, provided funding for Project Violet, which is due to complete at the end of next year. 

The project, being delivered by Warrington-based developer Langtree with partners Halton Council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, comprises three buildings. 

V2 and V3 will each span 12,000 sq ft, while a third building, V1, will be 18,000 sq ft. Each building will have floor plates of between 4,100 sq ft to 6,150 sq ft. Halton Council approved the scheme in February 2018.

Designed by Seven Architecture, the complex is located at the gateway of the Sci-Tech Daresbury science park next to Keckwick Lane and Innovation Way. 

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool city region, said: “We’ve invested £8.4m to help the site continue to grow and succeed, and to ensure that we’re able to offer world class facilities to keep attracting new businesses and jobs to the area. This project alone is expected to create hundreds of local jobs.” 

John Downes, chief executive of Langtree and chairman of Sci-Tech Daresbury, said Project Violet would be “pivotal” and allow the joint venture to “provide a home for more innovative businesses of all different sizes.” 

Sci-Tech Daresbury was established in 2006 and was granted Enterprise Zone status in 2012. Businesses already based at the science park include IBM and Hitachi.

In 2017, the three-storey 46,000 sq ft office and laboratory development Techspace One completed at the site.