Granta Park is a science, technology and biopharmaceutical park based on the bank of the River Granta in Great Abington near Cambridge, England.
The idea for the park came from the chief executive of The Welding Institute (TWI Ltd) Bevan Braithwaite OBE. He started negotiations in 1992 for an option to buy the 87 acres of farm land, on which Granta Park is now built, and obtained the planning permission from South Cambridgeshire District Council, which laid down the basic concept for a high quality, low density, fully landscaped development. A design team comprising Latz+Partner, [1] a leading German landscape design company and Eric Parry Architects developed the master plan for the park in consideration of ecological criteria with the aim of preserving and enhancing the existing rural landscape and ensuring the site would be easily accessible. A joint partnership was formed between TWI Ltd and MEPC plc, and Granta Park Ltd was created. MEPC, who at that time had already made a success of Milton Park in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, supported TWI professionally to turn Bevan Braithwaite's vision of a new Cambridge science and technology park into reality. [2]
The new park began to take shape at Great Abington following a groundbreaking ceremony held at the end of 1997. Bevan Braithwaite, the Chief Executive of TWI Ltd, teamed-up with Councillor Shirley Saunders, Chairman of South Cambridgeshire District Council, and Gavin Davidson of MEPC plc to launch the building of a cluster of modern R&D facilities. [3] Most of the key infrastructure was completed by summer 1998 with the development programme of the first Phase taking 5–7 years. [4] Set around a cricket pitch and overlooking a new lake in the wooded grounds adjacent to Abington Hall, the buildings contain research facilities and business accommodation for several thousand staff.
Granta Park provides not only new facilities for The Welding Institute's extensive R&D laboratories but also fulfils a need for purpose-built locations for the area's expanding biotech and technology sector. The following companies and other organisations are located there:
TWI finished the construction of three large new buildings by the end of 2014. One of these is the Granta Centre, used as a conference centre.
A welder is a person or equipment that fuses materials together. The term welder refers to the operator, the machine is referred to as the welding power supply. The materials to be joined can be metals or varieties of plastic or polymer. Welders typically have to have good dexterity and attention to detail, as well as technical knowledge about the materials being joined and best practices in the field.
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo, which later sold off the CRO part.
Cambourne is a new settlement and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, in the district of South Cambridgeshire. It lies on the A428 road between Cambridge, 9 miles (14 km) to the east, and St Neots and Bedford to the west. It comprises the three villages of Great Cambourne, Lower Cambourne and Upper Cambourne. The area is close to Bourn Airfield.
South Cambridgeshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 162,119 at the 2021 census. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. It completely surrounds the city of Cambridge, which is administered separately from the district by Cambridge City Council.
The Abingtons are a community in South Cambridgeshire consisting of two small villages: Little Abington and Great Abington, about 7 miles (11 km) south east of Cambridge.
Silicon Fen or the Cambridge Cluster is the name given to the region around Cambridge, England, which is home to a large number of high tech businesses focused on software, electronics, and biotechnology, including Arm and AstraZeneca.
The Cambridge Science Park, founded by Trinity College in 1970, is the oldest science park in the United Kingdom. It is a concentration of science and technology related businesses, and has strong links with the nearby University of Cambridge.
CSR plc was a multinational fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Its main products were connectivity, audio, imaging and location chips. CSR was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index until it was acquired by Qualcomm in August 2015. Under Qualcomm's ownership, the company was renamed Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.
Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining process that uses a non-consumable tool to join two facing workpieces without melting the workpiece material. Heat is generated by friction between the rotating tool and the workpiece material, which leads to a softened region near the FSW tool. While the tool is traversed along the joint line, it mechanically intermixes the two pieces of metal, and forges the hot and softened metal by the mechanical pressure, which is applied by the tool, much like joining clay, or dough. It is primarily used on wrought or extruded aluminium and particularly for structures which need very high weld strength. FSW is capable of joining aluminium alloys, copper alloys, titanium alloys, mild steel, stainless steel and magnesium alloys. More recently, it was successfully used in welding of polymers. In addition, joining of dissimilar metals, such as aluminium to magnesium alloys, has been recently achieved by FSW. Application of FSW can be found in modern shipbuilding, trains, and aerospace applications.
The Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) is a 150-acre (61 ha) manufacturing technology park in Waverley, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It was partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund, with Yorkshire Forward, and developed by Harworth Group, previously the property development arm of UK Coal, on reclaimed opencast coal mine land close to the site of the battle of Orgreave.
Technology Centre Teknia Ltd. (Teknia), also known as Kuopio Science Park, is a university related research park located in Kuopio, Finland.
Guangming District is one of nine districts in the city of Shenzhen. The district, bordering the city of Dongguan in the Northwest of Shenzhen, was created in 2007 as a "functional area" of Bao'an District. In May 2018, it became a formal administrative division.
MEPC is a British-based property investment and development business. It is headquartered in Milton Park, Oxfordshire. It used to be listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It is however now owned by the British Telecom Pension Fund and the Royal Mail Pension Fund.
Originally registered as the Institution of Welding Engineers in 1923, The Welding Institute has grown and changed over the intervening decades, yet maintains a specialisation in welding, joining and allied technologies.
Calvin Blignault was a South African mechanical engineer.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation (Technology) (2007) was awarded on 21 April 2007, by Queen Elizabeth II.
Cobham Technical Services is a UK-based technology organisation founded in 1920. It sells products for terrestrial and satellite communications, navigation and sensor applications; technical services and specialised systems for high-voltage and lightning testing; electromagnetic and multiphysics simulation software products.
Roy Geddes, born Robert Geddes, was a Scottish-born New Zealand chemist and biochemist, and worked as Dean of Science and Engineering at Auckland Institute of Technology.
Eric Owen Parry is a British architect, designer, writer and educator. Parry is the founder and principal of Eric Parry Architects established in London in 1983. His built work includes the restoration and renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Holburne Museum in Bath, 50 New Bond Street, 23 Savile Row, One Eagle Place in Piccadilly, Aldermanbury Square by London Wall, 30 Finsbury Square in London, and the London Stock Exchange. His projects also include a number of residential developments. Eric Parry's architectural work and design has been shown internationally on major exhibitions, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the British School at Rome, and the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Arthur Bevan Midgley Braithwaite was chief executive of The Welding Institute and founding director of Granta Park in Cambridge.