Plans for a flagship advanced processing unit have been revealed

Engineering specialist Sheffield Forgemasters has submitted a pre-planning application for a major machining facility on brownfield land in Sheffield’s Meadowhall district.

Located on a 16-acre site on Weedon Street, the 320,000 sq m factory will form one of the world’s most advanced large machining facilities to support the Ministry of Defense-owned company’s production for the UK’s defense programme.

With site work planned to begin in the fourth quarter of 2024, the building will cover a space equal to 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools and contain 17 new machines, including some of the largest and most advanced five-axis vertical turning lathes ever produced . .

Gareth Barker, Operations Director at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “The pre-planning application covers an ambitious new project to create a facility that will provide some of the most advanced large-scale machining capabilities in the world.

“Creating this on derelict land that was once part of Sheffield’s engineering past is an amazing investment for the city and for the UK, which will create highly skilled engineering jobs for decades to come.

“The building is set to become an iconic landmark and the scale of the effort is actually bigger than the construction of the UK’s largest open die forging line, which is underway at our adjacent Brightside Lane site.”

Plans for the new processing facility detail a 32-metre high main building located close to the Don River and designed to complement the historic look of the company’s existing buildings.

Alongside the main building is a proposed 38,000 square meter second building with a state-of-the-art test house and dedicated training area to transfer skills to the next generation of engineers.

Barker added: “The scale of what we are creating at the heart of Britain’s industrial heartland is truly monumental and will not only reduce supply risk for the UK and the trilateral AUKUS defense programmes, but will provide some of the most advanced and technological satisfactions. facilities for our employees.”

The processing facility is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2028 and will provide new levels of speed, precision and efficiency for manufacturing large, highly complex, nuclear-grade components.

All new machines are customized to Sheffield Forgemasters requirements and are already designed and built by machine tool specialist, WaldrichSiegen.

Both the company’s new forging line and the proposed machine shop will serve defense as well as commercial activities in sectors such as civil nuclear power, creating a new generation of engineers and designers ready to work with Industry 4.0 technologies.

JLL acted on behalf of Sheffield Forgemasters for the site acquisition and planning proposals.