New business park proposal for South Lakeland (From The Westmorland Gazette)

New business park proposal for South Lakeland

9:46am Friday 29th January 2010

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PLANS are being prepared to create another ‘green’ business park that would bring hundreds of high-value jobs to South Lakeland.

Property developer John Asplin, of Time and Tide North West, is looking to transform an area of land next to junction 36 of the M6 to build a £17.5 million site.

It is expected that the development, if it were to get planning permission, would create between 300 and 400 well-paid jobs.

“It would bring a massive amount of employment for highly skilled white collar workers in the knowledge based industry,” said Mr Asplin. “These high quality jobs would benefit the local community.

“We have got everything else in the Lake District. We have got the most desirable place to live in the world but you need to have the right environment in which to work.”

Mr Asplin, a drystone waller who developed his first property in Ulverston 15-years-ago, describes the site as an “eco-friendly strategic business park” and believes his 45-acre site would be able to provide support for renewable technologies and the nuclear industries - which is a similar objective to Ashford Associates’ proposed business park for the Plumgarths site outside Kendal.

“The location would be ideal to meet the nuclear, bio and renewable energy sectors in both the East Coast and Furness Peninsula,” he said. “Our intention is not only to attract these fields of business but to actively promote it in our practice.”

However, Mr Asplin said he thinks his site would be a more suitable location and would reduce traffic coming deeper into South Lakeland.

“I cannot stress enough the importance of that motorway junction,” he said. “It is sustainable in economic terms because I am not looking for any public finance, and it is sustainable in environmental terms because it impact unduly on the landscape.

“The transport node is already there. Like it or not anyone coming to the Lake District from the south comes off at junction 36, so the benefits are huge from an environmental point of view because we would intercept all that traffic.”

The site would also utilise green technology to micro-produce some of its own power.

“Our design would harness sustainable philosophy, with the use of photovoltaic panels, grey water recycling, ground source heat pumps, recyclable materials in construction and operation,” said Mr Asplin.

Cumbria Vision believe there is a need for this type of development in South Lakeland and Martin Staveley, strategy manager, said there is sufficient demand for more than one business park development.

“He (Mr Asplin) is looking to bring forward a high quality development, which I feel is needed in the Kendal area,” said Mr Staveley.

Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said: “I think it is a good site. It is a place that people in Kendal would find easy to travel to.

"The need for us to create well-paid jobs in the area is immense.”

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