£14 million redevelopment of former Rolls-royce Hillington site under way
WORK has started on the redevelopment of the former Rolls-royce site at Hillington, 15 years after it was vacated.
The £14 million rebuild comes amid increasing demand from the industrial sector for commercial units in the wake of the pandemic.
It is the biggest speculative newbuild scheme at Hillington Park, which is claimed to be Scotland’s largest industrial estate, in over 25 years and is part of Frasers Property UK’S continued investment in the estate.
Rolls-royce manufactured engines at Hillington, near Glasgow, for more than 60 years with the site employing 25,000 people at its peak.
The engineering giant once turned out 400 engines a week to power the fighter planes of Britain’s Second World War effort, including the Spitfire, before it eventually moved to its new purpose-built facility at Inchinnan.
Frasers Property UK purchased the majority of the estate in 2017.
Scottish construction company Muir Construction has been awarded the project. Hillington Park is home to about 500 organisations employing over 8,000 people.
The build will involve remediating historic ground
contamination and each unit will have low-energy and water-efficient fittings, air-source heat pumps for heating and cooling, and electric vehicle chargers.
The development will see up to 70 construction workers across all trades on site at any one time and over 200 jobs will be expected to be added to the Hillington Park workforce when the new development is fully occupied.
Grant Edmondson, commercial director at Hillington Park, said the development will bring industrial accommodation which is built to the “high-quality sustainable specifications that occupiers are seeking”.
“The site of the new development has a rich industrial heritage going back as far as 1939 when Rollsroyce began manufacturing the Merlin aircraft engines for the likes of the Spitfire,” he said.
“Vacant for over 15 years, we are delighted now to be breathing new life into the estate and investing in a new industrial zone aimed at the modern manufacturing, lastmile logistics, engineering and construction services sectors. We know the market lacks a supply of high-quality, modern premises with large, secure yards.”