Release date: 06 March, 2011

Chesterford Research Park’s multi-million pound infrastructure investment takes its state-of-the-art facilities underground.

Chesterford Research Park has invested £2.65 million in upgrading its power supply and sewerage treatment works to ensure it is one of the best-served and environmentally conscious research parks in the South East.

Chesterford Research Park has recently completed a significant upgrade to its infrastructure.  The works have improved the already high quality services that current tenants on the Park enjoy and prepared the way for the new Science Village development, the construction of which is expected to get underway in 2011.

£1.35 million has been invested in reinforcing and increasing the power supply to Chesterford Research Park, by directly linking the Park to the Saffron Walden primary feeder with two independent underground cables, each rated to carry 8000KVA.  By having underground cabling Chesterford Research Park can now boast a more constant and secure flow of energy to tenants that is not troubled by bad weather, one of the commonest causes of power outage in the UK, due to affect it can have on overhead cabling.

In addition, £1.3 million has been spent on a new underground sewerage works utilising a modern membrane bioreactor system.  These systems are increasingly being specified as the best available technology for virtually all waste water applications.  The new sewage system is considerably smaller, simpler to operate and more importantly delivers a consistently higher quality of effluent (higher than the Environment Agency recommendations), which Chesterford Research Park recycles for all its onsite irrigation.

John Harvey, Associate Director, Churchmanor Estates Company plc, joint developers of Chesterford Research Park with Aviva Investors commented: “At Chesterford Research Park we take our combined responsibilities of providing our tenants with the best possible environment in which to carry out their pioneering research and doing this in a sustainable and considerate way to the environment very seriously.  This massive investment in our infrastructure helps us achieve both these aims and firmly places us on the map as one of the best and most securely served Research Parks in the South-East”.

Chesterford Research Park is ideally situated within easy reach of the City of Cambridge, Stansted airport and the M11.  The Park also operates a taxi service and regular shuttle buses to and from the railway station at Audley End, from which London is only an hour away.  From its position within the South Cambridgeshire Biotech Cluster, Chesterford Research Park is perfectly positioned to offer companies of all sizes attractively located, state-of-the-art facilities.