Former Rolls-Royce factory site up for sale

An historic former Rolls- Royce factory is being sold after the firm that owned it went into administration.

The office and industrial building in Ettingshall, Wolverhampton, has been rented out to small businesses since Rolls-Royce scaled back its operation in 2003 with the loss of 94 jobs.

It used to be home to the components division of Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engineering which was in Spring Road for 100 years.

Hundreds of staff would make the heat exchangers which were used to cool down gas on North Sea rigs before it was piped to the mainland.

The building has been put on the market after Saturn Facilities, which has been running the site as a conference venue and letting offices, called in receivers.

No price has been fixed for the 44,616 sq ft office and a 5,000 sq ft industrial building but estate agents Jones Lang LaSalle, which is marketing it, say they expect a six-figure sum.

Simon Dicken, associate director, said: "There isn't really a value that we can put on the building. It's a historic site because of its past with Rolls-Royce."

Former MP Dennis Turner, now Baron Bilston, had appealed to the government for help to keep the components division there before it shut seven years ago.

He said today: "It would have been much better to see that site continue to produce goods for our country.

"It makes one despair to think of the many thousands of manufacturing jobs that we have lost in the Black Country.

"I hope that it is not inevitable that the site will end up used for stock holding or as a warehouse, as so many former factories tend to end up."

The rest of the former Rolls-Royce business is now run by Nuclear Engineering Services in a deal which saved the remaining 90 Rolls-Royce staff. It now employs 200 people.

The deadline for offers is December 17.