The first of its kind in Wales, a housing association has built a new business park to create a £30 million a year construction hub.
The new development is located in Mochdre on the outskirts of Colwyn Bay and was built by Cartrefi Conwy. It will enable Cartrefi Conwy to deliver more for the community, in particular in Conwy but also across North Wales.
The first housing association in Wales to invest in a business park, it is an exciting position to be in and the £30 million construction hub is planned to create up to 300 new homes.
The £1.7 million business park also hopes to kickstart local regeneration projects as well as provide jobs and training for its unemployed tenants. It has created 50 jobs and provided training for almost 200 tenants so that they can get back into the world of work.
Adrian Johnson, managing director of Commercial Services for Cartrefi Conwy group, said:
“We are diversifying our business, creating new income streams through construction related activities but ensuring tenants are given as many work opportunities as possible.
“Over the next five years as a group we’re looking at constructing up to 250 to 300 homes, through social housing grant programmes and working with a range of developers across North Wales.
“We’ll be spending around £30 million just on new-build provision locally in the area.
“On top of that we’re still actively refurbishing our existing stock with a programme of £5 million to £6 million per annum over the next five years maintaining the stock to ensure the continue to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard. That work is now being carried out by the Creating Enterprise.
“As a result, we’re creating employment opportunities for tenants and pumping money back into the local economy.
“The idea is to help tenants who really have struggled to get jobs by giving them an opportunity on these work schemes, learning new skills, with the profits being recycled for into giving tenants opportunities for work.
“Travis Perkins and Brenig Construction will also be tenants within the Business Park. These companies are key to our supply chain so we will be creating a construction hub with an overall annual turnover of around £30 million.”
