Five local businesses have signed leases at the newly-created Festival Park business park at Ebbw Vale.
Owners Birmingham-based Mercia Real Estate have transformed the former retail park site to create 24 industrial units totalling 84,202 sq ft for local and national businesses and logistic operators on the 70 acre site, which was chosen in 1992 to be the last British Garden Festival site.
The 24 units range in size from 958 sq ft to 8,504 sq ft and support a range of business uses including light industrial, trade counter and storage units.
Water Treatment Products Ltd (WTP) has signed a three year lease on the 8,478 sq ft Unit 10 – the largest unit on the estate. WTP is one of the premier water treatment chemical manufacturers in the UK.
Steve Jones, managing director, said: “Water Treatment Products employs 55 people at our manufacturing premises based in Blaenavon. The new Festival Park site gives us extra much-needed storage space and will allow the company to be more efficient and responsive to customers with its good links to the newly-completed ‘Heads of the Valleys’ road.”
Start up sheet metal fabricator Gwent Profiles has taken a five year release on Unit 20. Director Adam Rees said “We aim to supply industrial roofing products across South Wales, the South West of England, and eventually the whole of the UK.
“Having lived in the Blaenau Gwent area our entire lives, it was important that we secured premises in this area, the potential to create much needed opportunities in the area being one of our main objectives and driving force in our decision making. Growing up, the Festival Park site had always been a thriving hub in our community and we are keen to help to restore it. The units themselves had been completed to good standards and we look forward to working in a bright and clean environment.”
Local coach and minibus operator Blowers Travel Services has signed a 10 year lease on the 7,546 sq ft Unit 18.
At Unit 15, MHDA CIC, a not-for-profit dance and performing arts company established in 2003, has signed a five year lease
Florence Craft, owner and artistic director, said: “We provide high-quality training to children from age one through to adults. Securing our own dedicated premises at Festival Park marks a major milestone and the realisation of a long-held ambition for the organisation.
“Finding a space suitable for a dance academy is extremely rare and this unit stood out for its size, beautiful presentation, parking and peaceful setting.”
Gemma Coulthard is opening a new café in Unit 24 and hopes to employ six to eight people. She has signed a 10 year lease and commented: “I chose the Festival Park as I can see the potential of the site and the high standards of the conversions that has taken place. I was looking for somewhere that will give people easy access and parking, even for large vehicles.”
Owners Mercia Real Estate have appointed property consultancies Knight Frank and Jenkins Best to attract tenants to the completed centre. Kate Maffey, surveyor at Knight Frank’s Industrial & Logistics division in Cardiff, said: “The level of interest and number of companies signing up at Festival Park demonstrates the strong need for refurbished, quality business units in the region. We are delighted with the response and expect to announce more new tenants in the near future.”
Festival Park, Ebbw Vale, occupies a strategic location adjacent to the A4046 providing access to the M4 motorway, with the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road less than five miles away, and providing access to the A40, linking Swansea with the West Midlands via the M50 and M5 Motorways.
Ebbw Vale was chosen as the last British Garden Festival site in 1992 because of the waste land which had been the British Steel steel and tin works, which was partly demolished in the early 1980s. The National Garden Festival ran from May until October 1992 and attracted over two million people.
The site subsequently became home to a shopping centre hosting fairground attractions, plant exhibitions and over 30 shops but has been unused for several years.