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Adastral Park is a science campus based on part of the old Royal Air Force Station at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk.
When the site opened it was known as the Post Office Research Station, but it was subsequently renamed BT Research Laboratories or BT Labs and later Adastral Park to reflect an expansion in the organisations and activities co-located with BT Labs at the campus.
The original laboratories (when BT was part of the Post Office) were first opened by Elizabeth II in 1975. Prior to this the Post Office Research Station was at Dollis Hill in northwest London. Martlesham Heath was chosen as the site for a research facility because the surrounding countryside was relatively flat and therefore ideal for testing the radio-based communication systems in vogue at the time.
Initially, research was carried out into postal sorting and delivery technology, and telecommunications. After the Post Office was split apart and prior to British Telecom's privatisation in the early 1980s, the research concentrated on telecommunications.
In keeping with the stellar theme of the site name, buildings on site are named after stars or constellations (an example being the Main Laboratory Block now named the Orion building). The Orion building is easily recognisable from the nearby A12 road with its 200 feet (61 m) radio tower, now named Pegasus tower, dominating the skyline.
The change to the current name occurred in the late 1990s with the aim of turning the site into a high-technology business park, no longer exclusively for the use of BT. The name was created by Stewart Davies, the CEO of the BT business (BT Exact Technologies) headquartered at the site at that time. It is derived from the motto of the Royal Air Force—per ardua ad astra ("through adversity to the stars"). The Royal Air Force were prior residents of the site, as RAF Martlesham Heath. Experimental aircraft test flights flew from the airfield and the name was meant to reflect this. In March 2001, University College London, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, chose Adastral Park to set up the first-ever postgraduate research and teaching centre on an industrial campus, which was housed there until 2009. [1] During the transformation of the business park, many of the old buildings were removed and car parks were moved to the perimeter of the site, with the centre made into open parkland with a water feature to provide a 'park' feel to the complex. The site accommodates approximately 4,000 people. [2]
Companies based at Adastral Park besides BT (BT Applied Research) include:
There is also a satellite earth station operated by Arqiva; [4] the location was chosen for the visibility of satellites on the eastern horizon. In 2018 there were 98 high-tech companies at the site. [5]
BT worked with the Hawk and Owl Trust to set up a nesting box for a pair of peregrine falcons. [6] These produced two chicks in 2019, [7] and in 2020 a YouTube channel was set up and three chicks were produced. [8]
Over many years, BT has put forward various proposals and plans to expand activities at the business park. In June 2001, a framework for expanding the business park was created, but it was not linked to building any residential housing on the site. At the time BT forecast 3000 to 3500 additional jobs by about 2010. In 2007, BT said that they could develop the business park without the need for the income from selling land for housing.
In 2006, Suffolk Coastal District Council (SCDC) rejected a planning application for 120 log cabins on a site next to Waldringfield Road. The rejection was on the grounds that it was too near the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty amongst other reasons, and would result in an unacceptable increase in visitor numbers to a sensitive areas. BT initially objected on the grounds that it would interfere with their radio test area, although BT subsequently withdrew their objection provided the developer created a protective earth bund, rejected by SCDC. BT subsequently lodged a planning application for 2000 houses to be built. [9] At its closest the site comes within 88 metres (289 ft) of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, [10] and there are several Site of Special Scientific Interest close by, such as Newbourne Springs. [11] In April 2018, SCDC (subsequently merged with a neighbouring council to become East Suffolk District Council) gave outline permission for the development, which is now named Brightwell Lakes. [12]
Ipswich is a county town and borough in Suffolk, England. It is in East Anglia, about 10 miles (16 km) away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea.
Telecommunications towers in the United Kingdom are operated mainly by Arqiva. Arqiva operates the transmitters for UK terrestrial TV and most radio broadcasting, both analogue and digital. BT also operates a number of telecommunications towers in the UK.
Christopher David Mole is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Ipswich from a by-election in 2001, after the death of Jamie Cann, and was re-elected in 2005. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, until his defeat in the 2010 general election by Ben Gummer of the Conservative Party.
Thomas Harold Flowers MBE was an English engineer with the British General Post Office. During World War II, Flowers designed and built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help decipher encrypted German messages.
The BT Tower, formerly known as the Post Office Tower and the GPO Tower, is a landmark and telecommunications tower in Birmingham, England. It is the tallest structure in the city. Its post office code was YBMR.
Arqiva is a British telecommunications company which provides infrastructure, broadcast transmission and smart meter facilities in the United Kingdom. The company is headquartered at the former Independent Broadcasting Authority headquarters at Crawley Court in the village of Crawley, Hampshire, just outside Winchester. Its main customers are broadcasters and utility companies, and its main asset is a network of circa. 1,500 radio and television transmission sites. It is owned by a consortium of investors led by Digital 9 Infrastructure and the Australian investment house Macquarie Bank. Arqiva is a patron of the Radio Academy.
Martlesham is a village in Suffolk, England about two miles (3 km) South-West of Woodbridge and 6 miles (9.7 km) East of Ipswich. It is often referred to as "old Martlesham" by locals in order to distinguish this old village from the much more recent Martlesham Heath development (1 km) to the south although both form a single administrative parish. Also at Martlesham Heath is BT's Research and Development Centre, now called Adastral Park.
Martlesham Heath village is situated 6 miles (10 km) east of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield. A "new village" was established there in the mid-1970s and this has developed into a modern community, based on a traditional village pattern. The population is still included in that of Martlesham. The village is also part of the wider Ipswich Built-up area.
The Post Office Research Station was first established as a separate section of the General Post Office in 1909.
Paddock is the codeword for an alternative Cabinet War Room bunker for Winston Churchill's World War II government, located at 109 Brook Road, Dollis Hill, northwest London, NW2 7DZ; under a corner of the Post Office Research Station site. The name derives from the nearby Paddock Road NW2, in turn named after a nineteenth-century stud farm, the Willesden Paddocks, situated nearby.
Royal Air Force Martlesham Heath or more simply RAF Martlesham Heath is a former Royal Air Force station located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. It was active between 1917 and 1963, and played an important role in the development of Airborne Interception radar.
The Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) was a research facility for British military aviation from 1918 to 1992. Established at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, the unit moved in 1939 to Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, where its work continues following privatisation as part of the Qinetiq company.
Allen William Mark (Doc) Coombs was a British electronics engineer at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill.
BT Research is the research arm of BT Group, formerly part of the British Post Office. The company was first established in 1921 as the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, London. In 1968 BT moved of its research to the new site at Martlesham Heath based on part of the old Royal Air Force Station at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk, which was later renamed[ Adastral Park].
Newbourne is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It lies on the peninsula between the River Orwell and the River Deben, to the east of Ipswich and south of Woodbridge.
Foxhall is a civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England a few miles east of Ipswich. It is adjacent to the parishes of Kesgrave to the north, Martlesham to the northeast, Brightwell to the east, Purdis Farm to the south and the borough of Ipswich to the west. The three parishes of Brightwell, Foxhall and Purdis Farm have a common council. The 2001 population was 151 persons in 57 households according to the census, the population having increased at the 2011 Census to 200.
Buses in Ipswich operate in the town of Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk. As of 2013 services are primarily operated by Ipswich Buses and First Norfolk & Suffolk, although other smaller operators, such as Galloway European, Carters Coaches and Beestons, operate routes from the town into the surrounding rural area. Many of the current routes are based on those established at the end of the 19th century when a horse tram network developed.
The Graham Hills Building is a major building on Strathclyde University's John Anderson Campus, located in Glasgow, Scotland. The structure, originally known as Marland House, was completed in 1959 by the General Post Office (GPO) and was acquired by the university from the GPO's successor - British Telecom (BT) in 1987.
Clive Arthur Peirson Foxell CBE was an English physicist who pioneered the use of fibre-optic technology and was an author on the history of the Metropolitan Railway about which he produced a number of books.
The United Kingdom National Timing Centre is the proposed network of atomic clocks consisting of a central building, and a series of other locations across the UK.
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