Ashfield Land have, over the course of the last 3 years successfully transformed a redundant heavily contaminated brownfield site to provide nearly 60,000 sq ft of high specification warehouse/industrial accommodation. This successful regeneration of a 3.2 acre site, on Birmingham New Road, Dudley to provide 8 new units was greatly assisted by the regional regeneration agency, Advantage West Midlands.

The site, formerly known as the Ionic Plating works was bought from the receivers following a company failure in 2002. Up until this date the site was used for many years for an Ionic Plating process in a factory of some 50,000 sq ft. Although the existing factory unit was clearly beyond its economic life and the known contamination levels of the site high due to the historic use, the high profile location and potential of the site proved a strong attraction to Ashfield Land.

Once acquired, on an unconditional basis within a minimum period of time, Ashfield commenced the regeneration process.

A professional team was assembled by Ashfield and a strategy formulated.

The first stage of the strategy was to expand on the initial site investigation with a significant investment in geo-technical and intrusive surveys to determine the cost of preparing and reclaiming the land to institutional standards.

In conjunction with this process, Ashfield entered into extensive research into market demand as well as detailed discussion with Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council with regard to the planning potential on site in light of the market findings.

Detailed consultation with the Environment Agency was also undertaken to ensure their specific requirements were satisfied.

Following this investigation, Ashfield submitted a two phase application to Advantage West Midland seeking grant assistance for the demolition and subsequent remediation of the land. Following a period of some 12 months the application was successful and the newly branded ‘Ionic Park’ project was put into motion. A planning application for some 8 units extending to over 56,000 sq ft was submitted and subsequently granted. The permission was for B1, B2 and B8 use in units from 3,000 sq ft up to 12,500 sq ft.

The extensive remediation process was started and took 9 months and over £1 million to complete. Following a successful tender process, West Midlands based company A&H Construction started a 9 month built contract of the industrial units with practical completion being achieved in July 2005.

With the extensive marketing campaign having started at the same time as construction, very high levels of interest both locally and nationally were generated. Indeed some 3 months post completion, 4 of the units had been sold with a further 3 under offer. Current occupiers range from local companies (keen to expand their businesses and employment numbers into the modern facilities) and national companies such as Magnet and Storage King who were seeking, prestige, high profile accommodation for new West Midland operations. The eventual value of the scheme will be in the region of £5 million.

The successful regeneration of Ionic to provide much needed commercial space and employment opportunities in the Black Country is testament to both the expertise of Ashfield Land and the forward thinking of Advantage West Midlands.

Agents for the scheme are Bulleys (01902 713333) and GVA Grimley (0121 236 8236).