The developers of the former Ravenscraig steelworks site have unveiled the first £200 million phase of the scheme after years of legal wrangling.
A £1 billion transformation of the 1100-acre North Lanarkshire brownfield site has been planned for more than a decade but has been on hold for several years following legal challenges. Other property companies objected to the awarding of town centre status that would allow the construction of more than one million square feet of retail and leisure space there.
Ravenscraig Ltd, which includes Wilson Bowden Developments, Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire and Corus, has now received detailed planning permission to proceed with £25m worth of infrastructure work and roads that will allow the construction of a £20m sportscotland facility to start in 2007.
Land sales for the sportscotland building, as well as a £70m new campus for Motherwell College are now being finalised. Both parties are expected to submit detailed planning applications before December. The building of 820 homes is also proceeding as planned.
The total first phase development, which should be completed by 2009, will account for a quarter of the entire Ravenscraig site.
Ravenscraig has also struck a deal with Scottish Water to upgrade sewerage facilities to accommodate future phases of development. This is a significant move forward as the utility has been criticised in the past for slowing down the building of new homes and businesses across the country because of connection problems.
Scottish Water set up a special task force of development liaison managers in April to work directly with local councils and the development community to improve the situation.
Scottish Water spokeswoman Helen Lennox refused to speculate about the size of investment that would be needed for Ravenscraig over the coming years but said: “We pay for the strategic assets. It’s not all done at the beginning. It’s a 20-year investment.
“We’ve confirmed to them that we have enough strategic capacity to allow that development to go ahead and that we will continue to work with them as it develops over the next 20 years.”
Motherwell College has employed BDP Architects to design its campus, which will include four buildings. The campus will have a creche, student accommodation, main teaching and learning facilities and a workshop for engineering and motor trades. The campus will, in particular, have state-of-the-art facilities in its course specialties, which include hospitality, dance theatre and filmcraft.
Hugh Logan, principal of Motherwell College, said: “We’re excited by the project and the move and we’re looking forward to being at the heart of what will be a 21st-century environment for the area.”
The college plans to sell its existing 20-acre site, which is less than half a mile away from Ravenscraig.

Even as these advancements are made, however, a decision on a latest House of Lords appeal by developer Land Securities is expected in October. The appeal is against the Scottish Executive’s approval of an amendment to the local structure plan that gave Ravenscraig town centre status, allowing it to build vast amounts of shopping space.
Jim Fitzsimons, a director of Ravenscraig Ltd, said that existing outline planning consent allowed it to proceed with its first phase of development regardless of the pending decision. He added that the “town centre” was part of the second phase of development and was at least four or five years away.
He admitted, however, that the House of Lords case has meant that Ravenscraig has not been able to progress working plans for phase two because retailers would want assurances of the future picture.
Originally, Wilson Bowden Developments had said that it would work with America’s Mills Corporation to bring “shoppertainment” to the site. But Mills has since embarked on a massive sell-off of its European projects.
Fitzsimons said it was likely now that Wilson Bowden would be the lead developer on the town centre and that it had recently been approached by a number of other property companies about getting in on the project.