A MASSIVE former explosives plant would become home to 1,300 new homes, business parks, a golf course and a marina under plans for Scotland's largest brownfield regeneration scheme.
A blueprint unveiled yesterday revealed more than 1,000 new jobs are envisaged to be created across the 1,700-acre site in Ayrshire. Around £500 million is set to be invested over the next 15 years by developers NPL Estates.
New industrial facilit
ies, an expansion of two existing estates, a train station and sports facilities are also planned for the huge expanse of land, which has been closed to the public for almost ten years.
NPL Estates, the owners of the site, have been in lengthy talks with North Ayrshire Council over its planned transformation of the Ardeer Peninsula. The site is where Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, established one of his global network of explosives factories in 1871.
Latterly owned by ICI, at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s it provided employment for almost 15,000 men and women in the neighbouring coastline towns of Stevenston, Saltcoats and Ardrossan. There are currently only about 200 staff employed by companies in the area.
Simon Towers, managing director of NPL, said: "This exciting plan is the culmination of over five years' design and consultation work and will deliver unprecedented regeneration in an area which has experienced a decline in socio-economic conditions following the downturn of heavy industry."
He added: "The core objectives of the masterplan are to clean up the site, create employment, protection and enhancement of the environment and the creation of a sustainable extended community."
Suzanne McIntosh, associate at Keppie Design, the architectural practice which is designing the blueprint for NPL, said: "We're delighted to be working on such a visionary project which will be key to reviving the whole area."
The former ICI plant was previously home to a £14 million visitor attraction – The Big Idea – which was dedicated to inventions through the ages and paid special tribute to Alfred Nobel, who founded the British Dynamite Company on the Ardeer peninsula and lived in the area for seven years.
The full article contains 362 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
