Work starts on £3m new HQ

Work has started on the former GKN site in Wolverhampton where a £3million headquarters is to be built for a city locks firm. Fortress Interlocks won a Queen's Award for Industry this year for its industrial safety locks.

It aims to double its 56-strong workforce after it moves in next year. The new factory in Birmingham New Road is being built by Midland construction firm Weaver. The project at Monmore Grange Estate includes a two-storey office building plus a production and warehouse facility.

It is being built on the site of the former GKN test and design centre.

Mark Weaver, marketing director at Weaver Plc, said: "The nature of this brownfield site means that the ground has required specialist preparation before construction could begin."

Fortress Interlocks, which designs and manufactures safety equipment for potentially hazardous industrial machinery, was honoured in the Queen's Awards for Enterprise for its range of modular interlocks for use on machine safety guards.

The firm started life in the 1960s, in a corner of the Lowe & Fletcher factory in Willenhall, later becoming an independent business. It was bought by investment company Halma in 1984, moving to Birmingham New Road the following year.

Managing director Mike Golding said: "The move to our new headquarters is one of the major milestones in the transformation of the Fortress business."

The expansion has been supported with £711,000 of gap funding from Advantage West Midlands. Fortress will sell its existing Birmingham New Road site for housing.

Architect is Tweedale, quantity surveyor is Rigby Thorpe, and structural engineer is PJ Barnett, all of Wolverhampton.

Fortress will share the old GKN site with a 55-apartment development called WV4 being built by Bellway.

By Simon Penfold