News in Brief – June 2023

Stockport Mayoral Development (MDC) has announced The English Cities Fund (ECF) – a JV with Legal and General and Homes England – as its preferred long-term joint venture partner to develop an eight-acre site, known as Stockport 8. The project will transform the town centre site in Greater Manchester into a new digitally enabled, green and fully walkable neighbourhood, which is set to deliver over 1,200 new homes, alongside retail, leisure, and office space.

The University of Derby has appointed Kier to deliver its new business school in the heart of the city centre. The scheme will have a footprint of 9,317m² and is planned to include a 233-seat auditorium, a stock market financial trading room, a creativity lab, an extended reality (XR) suite and a range of social collaborative study spaces and quiet contemplation areas.

A planning application for a striking new pedestrian and cycle bridge at Royal Victoria Dock has been submitted by The Silvertown Partnership. The design consists of an elegant, step-free bridge which skims the water in a ‘double S-curve’ shape, with ample space for both cyclists and pedestrians.

Glencar Construction has been awarded a project to build the new LHR21 facility for Vantage Data Centers at their second London Campus, near Heathrow Airport. The 18,000m² data centre will be six-storeys high and house data processing equipment (telecommunications and computers) that will serve various businesses and enterprises that deliver online data services.

Rocket manufacturer Orbex, has announced that construction has begun at Sutherland Spaceport (formerly known as Space Hub Sutherland) in Scotland, which will be the first vertical launch spaceport to be built on the UK mainland. The site will launch up to 12 orbital rockets per year for the deployment of satellites into Earth’s orbit.