Oswestry business park plans spark 1,500 jobs hope
Work will begin on a 60-acre business park in Oswestry before the end of the year which could create 1,500 jobs.
Deputy leader of Shropshire Council, Councillor Steve Charmley, told the council funding is available for the proposed Oswestry Innovation Park.
The site, located just off the town’s Mile End roundabout, has been a vacant agricultural plot for some years.
Councillor Charmley said: “This is one of the key sites in the area that we have to play with and new council leader Peter Nutting has already stressed the importance of investing in business parks around the county’s market towns.”
He said the Innovation Park could create about 1,500 jobs for the area, adding: “There is some funding available – I think it’s about £7 million across the Marches LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership) areas and the Innovation Park is one of the projects bidding to access that.
“As it stands at the moment we have a planning application for the Innovation Park that is ready to go once the final negotiations have taken place with Highways England.”
It is hoped the application will be submitted with Shropshire Council within the next few weeks.
Councillor Charmley said: “Once it has been submitted, I’d like to think a decision is made by September and if approved, the first spade will be in the ground by the end of the year. Economic prosperity in Oswestry is at the forefront of what we want to achieve.”
The plans are hoped to be submitted with Shropshire Council within the coming weeks, according to Councillor Charmley.
"Once they've been submitted, I'd like to think a decision is made by September and if approved, the first spade will be in the ground by the end of the year," he said.
Councillor Charmley, who has previously heralded it as "the key project for economic prosperity countywide", said getting the business park off the ground is one of he and fellow Conservative councillors' main objectives for next five years.
He said: "Economic prosperity in Oswestry is at the forefront of what we want to achieve.
"There's currently a planning application in for 600 homes on Shrewsbury Road in the town, we need to create the jobs for those houses because one doesn't really work very well without the other."
