Development could create 2,000 jobs in Shrewsbury

Around 300 businesses have been invited to view the 35-acre commercial development site in Oteley Road South in Shrewsbury next month.

It comes as a new graphic was published that shows the size of the development, which sits in a prime location close to Shrewsbury Town Football Club.

The commercial land is only one section of a 100-acre project, which forms part of the Shrewsbury South Sustainable Urban Extension, and will include 550 homes, a community centre, a care home, a doctors surgery and a pub.

It is being marketed as a development as important as the i54 development alongside the M54 or various business park projects in Telford.

As this aerial photo shows, the site borders the A5, Shrewsbury Town Football Club's home – The Greenhous Meadow – and the Percy Thrower Wyevale Garden Centre.

On the opposite side of the A5 sits Bayston Hill Quarry. The scale of the quarry is shown in the aerial image, showing the layers of excavations that have provided thousands of tonnes of rock including that used to build the Formula One circuit in Bahrain.

Shropshire chartered surveyors, Towler Shaw Roberts (TSR), are marketing the Oteley Road site to businesses locally and across the country.

Partner Toby Shaw said that the development represents a huge opportunity for the region and a coup for him and his colleagues.

He said: "This is very exciting for a firm like ours and it is going to be a very significant site.

"We are hugely excited about it and it is a wonderful opportunity for the town. It is an excellent site for development."

Mr Shaw said the area offered "excellent" opportunities for businesses, with good access to the nearby A5 and motorway network.

He said: "It is the most significant site in Shrewsbury for at least 10 years.

"You look at the success of i54 and what they are doing in Telford, but equally there are an awful lot of businesses attracted to come to Shrewsbury and what we offer here."

He added: "It is a gateway location fronting the A5 bypass, next to the new Wyevale Garden Centre and the proposed new Waitrose supermarket.

"It offers excellent communications to the West Midlands conurbation and Mid Wales region for inward investment, and we believe the site is going to attract a lot of interest as the planning permission provides scope for a wide range of commercial uses and we have been working closely with the council's business and enterprise team to maximise inward investment opportunities and local company expansion."

Mr Shaw said the site could host a variety of businesses and praised staff at Lands Improvement for their commitment to the creation of community facilities for the development. He said:

"Our focus at the moment is to do the community facilities first and that says an awful lot about Lands Improvement and how they wish to develop the site over a period of time."

Mr Shaw said that the launch event, which takes place on September 10, will allow them to show the potential for the project.

He said: "We will be introducing people to Lands Improvement and it will be an opportunity for us to showcase probably the most significant site to come to market in the last 10 years."

Aoife Conacur, planning manager for Lands Improvement, said she was confident the site will generate "thousands of new jobs".

She said: "We gained planning consent in June this year, and are now delighted to be moving forward with the launch of the 35 acres of commercial land at Shrewsbury South.

"We anticipate that infrastructure works will commence in early 2016 to enable the delivery of serviced commercial and residential land parcels to meet local market demand.

"We believe that the development of the site is an exciting opportunity for the local area which will bring thousands of new jobs and attract significant inward investment."

As well as benefiting the Shropshire economy, the development will bring new homes to Shrewsbury as well as improvements to community facilities. As part of the planning consent, an agreement was signed between Lands Improvement, Shropshire Council and Shrewsbury Town Council, which requires the construction of 83 affordable homes and around £4 million of "community benefits".

Payments include £230,000 towards a community centre, £500,000 to be spent on improvements to the road network, £280,000 for education provision, £600,000 for maintenance of publicly accessible green space and around £370,000 for local bus services. The agreement also requires a contribution of £800,000 towards improvements of the strategic road network.