INVESTORS have given Stockport the perfect Christmas present by announcing the creation of almost 500 new jobs in the borough.
The first boost came when Stockport Council executive voted to back the Chancerygate development on a 16-acre site at Tiviot Way that include 33 warehouses, 16 trade units, a builders merchant and a car dealership.
A two-year construction project on the former Thomas Storey factory site will see 159 new building jobs, with more than 90 for Stockport workers, while the development will eventually employ 266 staff.
The site was to be the home to IKEA but the Swedish firm chose Tameside after the Government vetoed the Stockport development.
The new scheme will go ahead if the Government’s environment chief approves a new access road.
More jobs are on the way after planning permission was given for German engineering giant MAN Diesel to expand its Hazel Grove factory into the company’s UK headquarters which will incorporate a world training base.
The expansion will create 50 new jobs and safeguard the 150 already employed there.
Planners ruled that the new MAN Diesel buildings must be coloured green and that mature screening trees should be planted to minimise its visual impact on nearby Mirrlees Fields; an area of overgrown sports fields now a haven for dozens of species of flora and fauna.
Building work should start in March next year and be completed in early 2010.
Councillor Kevin Hogg, executive member for regeneration, said: "This is all wonderful news and shows Stockport is staying one step ahead of the credit crisis, where people seem to be talking themselves into a recession. It is a major coup for Stockport to have the UK headquarters of an international player. It could have been a massive problem if MAN Diesel had pulled out because a lot of people who live in the Hazel Grove area work there."
And further good news came this week after the site of Chemix, on Greg Street, Reddish, was bought by Irish building firm Freefoam.
Chemix, which manufactured raw materials for PVC windows, went into administration in October leaving the majority of its 60-strong workforce unemployed.
But Freefoam - maker of plastic gutters and drains - has bought the site, including equipment and its laboratory. Work has already restarted there.
Aiden Hart, commercial director at Freefoam, said the company would benefit from Chemix’s 30 years of experience in plastics.
He said: "The mixing plant provides Freefoam with access to high quality and cost effective raw materials. It not only meets our current needs but also our future developments."
