The English automotive engineering, research and testing facility MIRA has received GBP19.4m from the UK coalition government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) established to boost business growth.
MIRA’s RGF bid was among the top 15% received by government in value terms and among the 119 successful applications announced as part of a second, much larger, round of spending from the GBP1.4bn fund.
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MIRA was also awarded ‘enterprise zone’ status in August. It plans GBP300m expansion and aims to become the most advanced, independent transport technology development in Europe.
CEO George Gillespie said: “Having met with [deputy prime minister] Nick Clegg earlier this year to explain our engineering capabilities, the job creation potential and inward investment opportunities that our expansion represents, I’m very gratified with this result – which will help to create over 2,000 jobs.
“This is an excellent example of government working together with the private sector to encourage growth and investment – which in our case has been critical for the creation of the 155,000sq m MIRA Technology Park development which will incorporate a new engineering centre and will firmly establish both the region and the UK as a centre of excellence in transportation R&D.”
The RGF money will be used to improve the road infrastructure surrounding MIRA, improving traffic flow and mitigating congestion at known bottlenecks and accident blackspots as well as accelerating the pace at which the re-development of its 830 acre site is able to proceed by reducing the amount of private investment required.
