• Swindon & Wiltshire Property
• Monday March 3 2025
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Work at Swindon’s £900 million Panattoni Park ‘progressing well’

Work to convert the former Honda site in Swindon into a giant logistics hub is progressing well, Swindon Borough Council has confirmed.

A year after then-prime minister Rishi Sunak visited Swindon to officially ‘break the ground’ at the £900 million Panattoni Park, the council has released new photos showing the progress behind the wire.

Having cleared the site in March 2024, the first of several huge employment hubs will soon be constructed.

Once completed, the £918 million redevelopment will support an estimated 11,000 jobs with a further 4,000 in the supply chain.

The 7.2 million sq ft site, close to Junction 15 of the M4, will house around 11 net zero carbon buildings containing a mix of brand-new advanced real estate space, fit for logistics, manufacturing and data centre uses.

Swindon Borough Council leader Jim Robbins recently met with Panattoni’s regional head of development James Watson.

He was told work on the largest 915,000 sq ft unit is due to start in the coming months and that interest in the site from firms who want to invest and relocate to Swindon is strong.

The council leader also heard how the developer has recycled 98 per cent of the construction waste,
5,000 tonnes of steel re-used in the secondary or recycling steel market.

Hundreds of staff have been working on the site demolition and clearance, many of them local, and Cllr Robbins was given a tour of the vast development to see at first hand the sheer scale of the development.

Following the visit, Cllr Robbins, said: “It’s hard to over-estimate the positive impact that Panattoni Park will have on Swindon’s economy and local growth, regenerating one of the UK’s biggest brownfield developments.

“It was impressive to see the progress Panattoni has made to completely clear the site in less than a year to pave the way for 7.2 million square feet of best-in-class industrial, manufacturing and data centre property. I was delighted to meet James and his team to find out how the development is moving forward.

“It is an absolutely huge site and I’m really pleased that we will soon begin to see buildings emerging from the ground, built with a real focus on net zero and sustainable construction. This really ties in with our mission to build a greener Swindon and I was really encouraged that so much of the demolition material has been recycled.

“This is one of Panattoni’s biggest developments of its type globally and the regeneration of the former car plant over the next decade will turbocharge our already buoyant economy and provide thousands of extra jobs on site, not to mention the thousands more in the supply chain.

“I look forward to seeing the strong interest in the site from potential businesses translating into exciting upcoming announcements for Swindon.”

James Watson added: “We’re grateful for the hard work and commitment Swindon Borough Council has given this enormous regeneration project.

“Our team have worked extremely hard to sustainably demolish the former Honda plant and we’ll shortly begin speculatively developing exemplar logistics and manufacturing real estate here throughout 2025.

“Exciting times lie ahead for Swindon and the site itself. Further announcements will be made Q2 this year.”

Latest: Work starts in Swindon on UK’s biggest ever speculative logistics facility