Willmott Dixon wins £27m Aberystwyth campus development

Willmott Dixon has been selected for the pre-construction stage to work with the university’s team to develop a detailed technical design for the new campus, which will provide world leading facilities and the expertise to create market focused solutions for the agri-tech industry.

This is Willmott Dixon’s second landmark university campus project in two weeks. Earlier this month it won the contract for Kingston University’s Town House building. It is also the second major Welsh university project for Willmott Dixon in the last six months, with the company also involved with Swansea University’s £31m Computational Foundry.

Located on the existing Gogerddan Campus, the Aberystwyth Innovation & Enterprise Campus (AIEC) is designed to provide an environment to encourage business and academic collaboration, to turn research into commercial innovation. Planned departmentys within the AIEC include a Bio-refining Centre, a Future Food Centre, Analytical Science laboratories and a Seed Processing and Biobank Facility

One of the existing buildings that will form part of the AIEC has already been refurbished to provide more than 300m² of rentable office accommodation for businesses.

A final planning application has been submitted to Ceredigion County Council with a decision expected in spring 2017. Subject to planning permission, construction is proposed to start mid-2017 and is expected to take two years to complete.

Neal Stephens, managing director for Willmott Dixon in Wales said: “We will work with the design team, using our experience and capabilities, to provide the best solutions for the Innovation & Enterprise Campus and help the university have world-class facilities to attract businesses, academic staff and students to drive growth in the economy.”  

Universities have proved fruitful hunting ground for Willmott Dixon with such projects as creating a ‘living-green wall’ for Teesside University, building and extending Birmingham City University’s Curzon building, creating Bournemouth University’s new flagship ‘Fusion’ building and Leicester University’s Passivhaus certified Centre for Medicine.

It was also recently appointed to build an annexe to the Schuster Building for the University of Manchester’s School of Physics & Astronomy and it has just completed an upgrade to the University of Derby’s STEM building as well as a new campus in Scarborough for Coventry University.

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