Investment plans forge ahead for Garnett Dickinson

L-R Mel Burrell (Managing Director - St Paul's Developments), John Dickinson (Chairman - Garnett Dickinson Group), Mike Cuff (Chief Executive - Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council), Hamish Dunlop (Chief Executive - Garnett Dickinson Group) and Nick Alexander (Group Commerical Director - Garnett Dickinson Group).

One of South Yorkshire’s leading print and publishing companies, the Garnett Dickinson Group, is forging ahead with its investment plans with the build of its new 120,000 sq ft factory and offices at Brookfields Park, the Enterprise Zone on the former Manvers Colliery site in Rotherham. Mike Cuff, Chief Executive of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council helped mark the occasion with a turf digging ceremony at the site held last week along with Garnett Dickinson Group Chairman, John Dickinson.

Work is already well underway at the site with much of the steelwork already in place. The first phase of this development will be completed in time to take delivery of Garnett Dickinson Print’s new 48pp MAN Roland Lithoman IV printing press which will be installed in November of this year and be operational by February 2006. The new factory and offices are part of a £20 million investment programme announced by the company back in April. The company is well known for printing high quality magazines, catalogues and brochures for customers such as the BBC, Trinity Mirror and MyTravel and publishing the Rotherham Advertiser plus other local newspapers.

The Garnett Dickinson Group is currently based at Eastwood Works in Rotherham, but has recently sold the existing site to a property investment company for use as business units and offices. Garnett Dickinson will continue to stay on at the current site, as tenants, until early next year when all of its operations move to the new Brookfields Park site. The move to the new site will be phased to allow smooth relocation of production.

Brookfields is an 85 acre site reclaimed from the former Manvers Colliery on the M1/A1 link road. The attraction of the site to Garnett Dickinson, said Group Chief Executive, Hamish Dunlop: “is obvious – its location close to our Rotherham workforce; excellent and speedy road communication links to both the M1 and the A1 (M); and of course the substantial financial benefits of the Enterprise Zone. St Paul’s Developments completed the acquisition of Brookfields from Rotherham MBC in April of this year. The site is Britain’s largest remaining Enterprise Zone and will create an estimated 2500 jobs when fully developed. St Paul’s Developments is managing the build for Garnett Dickinson who will be the site’s first occupier.