Last week we reported that six sites are due to receive investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Here we take a closer look at the former industrial property that has come out on top in the funding hand-out.
The Flax Mill Maltings in Shrewsbury will be regenerated over a three year period that Shropshire Council hopes will create new employment for local people.
The site in Ditherington, north of Shrewsbury town centre, comprises seven listed buildings including the world’s first iron-framed building, according to English Heritage.
The Flax Mill was in service from 1797 until 1897, and was then turned into a maltings until it shut its doors in 1987.
The space is now being offered to businesses with facilities to include free parking and broadband. In addition ann exhibition space will be opened for visitors to learn about the history of the site.
Chairman of the Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings, Alan Mosley, called the lottery grant “fabulous news.”
He said: “Apart from protecting and opening up our internationally-important heritage to the public, the grant will bring tremendous – and much needed – investment, jobs, services, community facilities and hence, regeneration, to the area.”
Reyahn King, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund, West Midlands, said the funding would “celebrate and reuse our industrial past.”
English Heritage took over the mill in 2005 and submitted its redevelopment proposal in partnership with Shropshire Council, the Holmes and Communities Agency and the Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings.
In 2012, the HLF gave more than £465,000 to the maltings to refine its development proposal.
Work is set to begin on the site in October 2013 and is scheduled to be completed in early 2016, with the site open to the public by spring 2016.
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