A famous former factory site in Birmingham is being given a new lease of life more than a decade after its former inhabitants shut up shop there.
The old Lucas factory car battery plant in Tyseley closed in 2006 but is now being regenerated into a new industrial estate set to create at least 350 jobs.
Work is nearing completion on an access road, to be called Battery Way, at the land which will initially house eight new industrial units, the largest of which at 60,000 sq ft is due for completion in August and is pre-let to Decora Blinds.
Developer A&J Mucklow is leading the regeneration, working alongside the city council, Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and combined authority.
The eight units are the first phase of a larger 19-acre, £40 million regeneration project at the disused land which was featured in the last series of hit BBC show Peaky Blinders.
West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said: "Generations of Brummies worked at the Lucas battery plant and its closure would have been seen by many as another example of the city's industrial decline.
"Yet the regeneration now taking place on this site is a reflection of the wider economic renaissance we are experiencing in the West Midlands.
"This has seen us re-establish ourselves at the leading edge of automotive manufacture, not least in the development of next-generation battery technology for electric vehicles."
City council leader Ian Ward added: "This exciting regeneration scheme is about so much more than the redevelopment of one of Birmingham's most historic industrial sites - it's yet another example of how we're investing in Birmingham's future.
"We're creating industrial jobs for the 21st century and creating the perfect conditions for SMEs to thrive across the city."
Funding for the scheme has been provided by the combined authority's ‘Brownfield Land and Property Development Fund'.
