Atom Valley’s £37m Rochdale innovation centre reaches completion

Glencar has reached practical completion on Rochdale’s £37m Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Centre, the first major scheme delivered within the Atom Valley Innovation District. The milestone was celebrated on Friday, ahead of specialist fit-out and a planned opening in 2027.

The 30,000 sq ft centre, off Michael Faraday Avenue, will accommodate advanced materials and manufacturing businesses, combining workspace with access to research and technical support. Rochdale Development Agency drove its delivery alongside Wilson Bowden Developments, as reported by Place North West.

What happened

Completion of the main construction phase brings the building into its next stage of preparation, rather than marking the start of operations. Glencar’s work will be followed by the specialised fit-out needed before businesses can use the centre.

The premises bring together workshops, laboratories, offices and metrology space. That mix is intended to allow companies to undertake technical development work alongside their day-to-day business activities within the same facility.

Early-stage businesses will be able to take space and work alongside more established companies. The intended progression is for those smaller occupiers to expand into other buildings planned within the innovation district as their operations grow.

DLA Architecture acted as delivery architect, following an initial design by BondBryan:Fairhursts. BWB and Brook Ecological also formed part of the project team.

The background

The centre has been in development since 2019. It is an early component of a much larger programme for Atom Valley, where advanced materials and manufacturing are the focus of the innovation district.

The wider Atom Valley Mayoral Development Zone extends across Rochdale, Bury and Oldham. Its plans encompass 7,000 homes and 17m sq ft of flexible employment space, as well as the innovation district itself.

Those figures describe the ambitions for the wider development zone, rather than the accommodation delivered by the £37m centre. The new building provides an initial location for business and research activity while further premises are planned.

The completion celebration coincided with an announcement that UK Research and Innovation would invest £1bn in industrial clusters. The national funding plans sit within the government’s wider innovation and mayoral funding programme; the announcement does not establish a specific allocation for this building.

The centre was developed through collaboration involving Rochdale Development Agency, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the University of Manchester and the networks behind the Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability, known as CEAMS.

What people are saying

Paul Ormerod, chair of the Atom Valley Greater Manchester Mayoral Development Zone, told guests at Friday’s celebration that the completed building demonstrated the move from proposals to physical delivery.

In a separate speech in Manchester, Andy Burnham pointed to Atom Valley as an example of locally driven growth. He highlighted collaboration between companies, universities and local government as an approach he wanted to see adopted more widely.

John Holden, the University of Manchester’s vice-president for civic engagement and innovation, set out the university’s role as lead delivery partner for the centre’s innovation activity. Its work will connect research capabilities with businesses and national partners to help ideas progress through development, expansion and commercialisation.

Holden said that programme was intended to accelerate the growth of the region’s existing advanced materials and manufacturing cluster and attract more than £60m in private investment. That is an investment ambition associated with the innovation programme, separate from the £37m cost of the centre.

Rochdale Council’s portfolio holder for regeneration and housing, councillor Daniel Meredith, said the project would strengthen the borough’s position in innovation and advanced manufacturing. Holden also placed the centre and wider district within the university’s commitment to innovation-led growth across Greater Manchester.

What happens next

The immediate priority is specialist fit-out, with the centre targeting an opening in 2027. Practical completion therefore represents a construction milestone, with further work required before the facility begins supporting occupiers.

Once open, businesses based there will be able to access support from the University of Manchester and the CEAMS consortium. Its members include the Henry Royce Institute, National Physical Laboratory, Centre for Process Innovation and NCC.

Beyond the centre itself, the proposed expansion route for growing companies depends on further buildings being delivered within the innovation district. The source gives no completion dates for those premises.

The original planning proposals for the centre are available through Rochdale Council under application reference 24/00668/FUL.