A Tyneside laboratory site — opened in 1970 by technology minister Tony Benn — is being evaluated for sale by the engineering and electronics giant Siemens.
The 25.3-acre plot, off Victoria Road West, Hebburn, was once occupied by a huge grey cube which housed Reyrolle’s Henry William Clothier laboratory. Heralded as the premier test facility for high voltage electricity in the United Kingdom, the building was bulldozed early in 2013 and the land sold by Blyth-based National Renewable Energy Centre.
It was then acquired by Siemens which only last week announced it plans to create hundreds of new jobs on South Tyneside as it gears up to supply components for Thameslink’s Class 700 trains. It’s understood that cash from the laboratory site sale could go toward new warehousing, training facilities and access for Siemens.
Used as an industrial site for more than a century, there are now controversial calls to turn the land over to housing. “I don’t think the authority has any hard and fast views on this,” said Hebburn councillor Eddie McAtominey, “but, speaking personally, I think it would make a good site for housing. It is a very large site and would be appropriate for a residential development.”
That, responds one North-East agent, would be a “disaster” for the area. “This is a huge piece of land, in a high unemployment area, and with access to a proven workforce eager for jobs,” he commented. “It offers so many possibilities I am surprised housing is even on the table.
“There is an ongoing shortage in this region for ‘big hut’ distribution warehouses of 100,000sq ft and over. This site could take several,” he adds. “The transport access it has, not just locally but region-wide, would also make it ideal for a Grade A office development or business park.”
Earlier this month South Tyneside Council confirmed that a housing developer had bought a former college campus in nearby Mill Lane. “Quite rightly the council is hoping that scheme will help it attract one of the big four supermarket retailers to the run-down town centre,” added the agent. “Why not start from scratch and offer this site as a retail park?”
Siemens has appointed commercial agents Rapleys to sound out the market and handle any potential sale. A spokesman for the engineering company would only say that, “discussions are taking place, but no decision has been made on the future of this land”.
