Harworth secures first tenant for Staffordshire industrial park
Harworth has announced its first tenant at the 1.2m sq ft Chatterley Park, with a 108,600 sq ft advanced manufacturing facility pre-let to an unnamed automotive parts designer.
Enabling works are now largely completed at the Ceramics Valley industrial and logistics development near Bradwell in Newcastle-under-Lyme, which received outline consent in 2019.
A detailed application for the 108,600 sq ft Unit D has not yet been submitted – however, detailed planning consent was approved for the first two buildings on the scheme in December 2025, paving the way for more 777,000 sq ft of 40m-tall warehouse space at Units A and B.
Harworth declined to comment on the identity of the future occupier.
The 106-acre Chatterley Valley development is built on land that was formerly part of the Chatterley Whitfield colliery, one of the country’s most important coal mines and the first to produce more than 1m tonnes of coal in a single year.
Coal production ceased in 1977, with the remaining reserves worked from the nearby Wolstanton Colliery,
In a trading update issued this morning, Harworth announced it had made “good progress” on plans to shift its portfolio away from residential schemes, which total around 4,000 homes in the Midlands including the redevelopment of a former power station in Ironbridge, Shropshire.
The group also said it had entered into negotiations with several parties over the sale of an unidentified plot of land for a hyperscale data centre, two years after it completed a £106.6m deal with Microsoft for a 500,000 sq ft data centre at Skelton Grange in Leeds.
“We have seen strong momentum across our sales and lettings pipeline during the first half and into the second, including the first letting at our 1.1m sq ft Chatterley Park site, to an advanced manufacturer, and a further letting to a national logistics operator at our well-established Gateway 36 development,” said Lynda Shillaw, chief executive of Harworth.
“Our second data centre opportunity that we are highlighting today underlines Harworth’s position as one of the most significant regional players in the rollout of the UK’s digital infrastructure, working with some of the largest operators in the industry.
“With our unique skillset, extensive land bank and 0.8GW of power connections across our portfolio either conditionally secured or in the pipeline, we are well positioned to accelerate our reallocation of capital to powered land and industrial growth sectors. This in turn will create a simpler, higher-returning platform to deliver sustainable future growth.”
