Construction starts on sustainable manufacturing hub at Atom Valley

Work has officially begun on a new 30,000 sq ft innovation centre in Rochdale, marking the first major development at Atom Valley, Greater Manchester’s flagship growth zone focused on advanced manufacturing and materials science.

The Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Centre (SMMC), located at Kingsway Business Park, is expected to be completed by summer 2026.

Designed to support early-stage companies and high-growth innovators, the facility will include laboratory space, workshops, design studios, offices, meeting rooms and a lecture theatre. It forms part of a broader plan to drive economic expansion across the North East Growth Corridor and Greater Manchester’s wider innovation ecosystem.

Atom Valley, designated a Mayoral Development Zone in 2022, aims to connect key industrial sites in Rochdale, Oldham and Bury through new transport infrastructure and coordinated investment. The zone is part of Greater Manchester’s Integrated Pipeline for investment, which focuses on delivering high-value employment space and supporting infrastructure across the city-region.

Once operational, the SMMC is expected to serve as a platform for commercialising research in sustainable materials and manufacturing, with ambitions to generate up to £107 million in economic value and support the creation of up to 20,000 jobs in the long term across Atom Valley.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony on 12 November, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “With the right investment, this centre will become a major springboard to growth for companies innovating right here in Greater Manchester,” he said. “It will help unleash the untapped potential of world-leading research taking place across our city region, bridging that crucial gap from invention to commercialisation.”

The new facility is also intended to support regional collaboration by linking Atom Valley to Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor, a major innovation district that includes several universities and research institutions. This connection is seen as a key pathway for spinouts and scale-ups to move from the city centre into new development zones in the north of the region.

The SMMC has been backed by funding from Greater Manchester’s Industrial Strategy Zone and Towns Fund allocations managed by Rochdale Development Agency. An agreement signed earlier this year between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Rochdale Development Agency and the University of Manchester sets out plans to explore further development options for the site.

The development is part of Greater Manchester’s wider strategy to convert R&D strengths into commercial success, following concerns highlighted in a University of Cambridge report earlier this year about the UK’s underperformance in translating innovation into economic output. The SMMC is intended to help address that gap locally by providing purpose-built infrastructure for the materials and manufacturing sectors.