LOMONDGATE DRIVES DUNBARTONSHIRE ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Planning permission has been granted for Aggreko's new £20m manufacturing facility on the Lomondgate development at Dumbarton which will safeguard 125 jobs and potentially create a further 100.
The decision is further good news for the Lomondgate project in a week in which a new independent Economic Report from Roger Tym & Partners revealed that it has boosted the local economy by £91.7 million since 2002.
The report also predicts that when the whole development is complete it will support around 1,400 additional local jobs and that, by 2019, the cumulative impact on the local economy will be in excess of £450 million.
Aggreko, which is the world's leading temporary power and temperature control provider, has been given the green light to build a 160,000 sq ft plant facility and 25,000 sq ft of office and ancillary accommodation on a 16 acre site just off the A82 at Lomondgate.
The company is currently based on the Broadmeadow Industrial Estate, Dumbarton, where most of its fleet of rental generators and temperature control equipment are designed and assembled. However the rapid growth of Aggreko's worldwide business over the last five years now means this facility is too small and production has been spread around a number of other sites in the West of Scotland.
Aggreko has plans to invest around £20m in the new Lomondgate plant over a three-year period and hopes to create more than 100 new jobs.
David Hastings, Executive Director of Strathleven Regeneration Company added: "The new plant is fantastic news for Aggreko, the Lomondgate development and the Dumbarton area and will help bring in further investment and create significant numbers of new jobs in the area.
"It is great to see our plans to transform the site of the former J&B bottling plant on the A82 at Dumbarton into an economic and residential hub starting to come to fruition thanks to our development partners, Walker Group, flagship tenants BBC Scotland and Aggreko's proposed investment."
The £100m Lomondgate project, which was launched in 2007, by Strathleven Regeneration Company, (SRC) a non-profit making organisation set up by West Dunbartonshire Council and Scottish Enterprise with the support of Diageo.
SRC formed a partnership with developer Walker Group to help deliver its plans of a thriving new community on the site providing 300 new homes, a 20 acre business park offering a variety of different sized buildings, suitable for both small indigenous users and large corporate bodies, together with roadside services and other amenities for the business park.
So far more than £14m has been invested by the Walker Group into the development of Lomondgate, which includes significant local road improvements, including the construction of the new Lomondgate roundabout leading into the business park and the other main elements of the project.
Current operators include the BBC, which films River City on the site and recently agreed a new lease until 2026. It has so far invested £5.35million in its Dumbarton drama production facility with an annual programming budget of approximately £8m. Up to 300 people are involved in the making of River City at Dumbarton, including extras and supporting artists, and it is estimated that the use of the facility for additional programming generates a further 100 jobs per production.
Whitbread has purchased land to build a 60 bedroom Premier Inn hotel and Table Table Restaurant on part of the nine acre roadside services site which will include a petrol filling station and convenience store. It is also proposed to create two fast food/restaurant outlets in addition to further 'destination services' at this gateway to Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park.
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