Caddick starts Cheadle Eco Park: timber-frame design and carbon lessons for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Construction has begun on Cheadle Eco Park, a £25m, 115,000 sq ft light-industrial scheme for Stockport Council on a seven-acre brownfield site on Bird Hall Lane, comprising six units from 8,374 sq ft to 43,800 sq ft. Designed by AEW Architects to achieve BREEAM Outstanding and EPC A, the park will use air source heat pumps, natural ventilation and smart energy-efficient lighting. The development, backed by a £4.4m Town Fund grant, will be the UK’s largest purpose-built industrial and logistics scheme built entirely from sustainably sourced timber, cutting embodied carbon versus steel frames.
Technical Brief
- Structural frame will be constructed entirely from sustainably sourced timber rather than conventional steel.
- Development replaces legacy industrial buildings on a constrained seven-acre brownfield plot off Bird Hall Lane.
- Six-unit layout is being delivered by Caddick Construction as main contractor for landowner Stockport Council.
- Network Space Developments is appointed as development manager, coordinating client, design team and delivery.
- Scheme cost is £25m, with £4.4m of this funded via the government’s Town Fund grant.
- Completion is programmed for March 2027, implying roughly a three‑year construction and commissioning window.
- BREEAM Outstanding target places the park within the top ~1% of UK non‑residential assets for sustainability metrics.
- Positioning as one of the UK’s “greenest” light‑industrial parks sets a benchmark for future brownfield industrial regeneration.
Our Take
A £25 million industrial scheme in Stockport sits at the larger end of UK local-authority backed eco-park projects in our infrastructure database, signalling that Stockport Council is treating Cheadle Eco Park as a strategic employment hub rather than a small demonstrator site.
Targeting BREEAM performance in the top 1% of UK non‑residential buildings will likely push AEW Architects and Caddick Construction towards higher-spec envelopes, services, and on‑site renewables, which can raise upfront capex but typically improves letting prospects and long‑term operating costs for occupiers.
The £4.4 million Town Fund grant implies that public money is de‑risking early stages of the Cheadle Eco Park, a pattern seen in several of our UK ‘Sustainability’‑tagged infrastructure pieces where central funding is used to unlock brownfield or edge‑of‑town industrial land that might otherwise struggle to reach financial close.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
