A one-of-a-kind Cambridge innovation centre has been awarded £2m of Government funding less than two weeks after receiving full planning permission.
The four-storey Epicentre research and development hub will be the first unit to be built at Haverhill Research Park which will ultimately provide up to 450,000sq ft of office, laboratory, technology and support accommodation for a range of high-tech of companies.
Part of the Greater Cambridge technology and office cluster the Carisbrooke Investments-owned campus is located close to the Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Essex borders. A key factor of its marketing campaign is the claim that annual property costs — rent, rates and service charges — are at least 30 per cent lower for a park tenant than they would be for equivalent premises within Cambridge city centre.
“Haverhill Research Park is ideally located to provide much needed new innovation space for a range of pioneering businesses looking to start-up and grow,” explained Grahame Nix, chief executive of Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (GCGP).
“Its location close to Cambridge, the globally renowned innovation capital, means that we can help to expand the positive impact of the Cambridge phenomenon beyond the city boundaries and enable the wider economy to flourish,” he added.
The Government’s £2m Growth Deal funding was granted after a joint application from the GCGP and New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (NALEP). It will be used to finance the 300,000sq ft innovation centre, expected to cost at least £5.4m.
As its name implies, the Epicentre will be a landmark block adjacent to the lake in the centre of the park and provide facilities focused on the information and communication technology, bio-tech and agricultural technology sectors. It will include high specification offices and laboratories as well as conference and meeting rooms, training facilities, and a ground floor coffee shop.
As chairman of NALEP, Mark Pendlington feels that securing the Government funding was a serious vote of confidence in the project. “There is great potential to grow the number of high-tech businesses in West Suffolk,” he said, “and the innovation centre is certain to be a flagship building and a catalyst for the rapid development of the wider research park.”
This is not the first time both LEPs have invested in Haverhill Research Park. Between them they loaned Carisbrooke Investments the money to pay for an access road which unlocked the site for future development. The road has now been completed and the money repaid.
Carisbrooke Investment’s director, Nic Rumsey said the granting of planning permission and the cash injection, both arriving within days, would “see the Epicentre brought to fruition in super-fast time”.
He added: “We are continuing to work up the design and expect to go out to tender very soon with a view to receiving contractor proposals during August, allowing us to complete the letting of the contract and to be on site in October.”
