Expansion without pushing the boundaries

You may have seen the piece in the Kent Messenger with regards to the Kent Science Park and their recent application to refurbish one of their buildings into accommodation for 40 hi-tech science companies.

Now I’m all for this and genuinely wish them every success with this. This is a prime example of how they can make better use of what they already have. If this single building can accommodate 40 companies, and taking an average of say 4 people per company, they could therefore accommodate maybe some 160 people, maybe more, in this building alone.

With Swale Forward’s recently published targets of creating 500 new jobs in the next five years, they would only need to do this a couple more times and you have the next 5 years of expansion all wrapped up.

Now looking at the site a building of this size could be constructed dozens of times before they would run out of space and therefore need to expand beyond the boundary.

What the Kent Messenger also neglected to mention was that £1 million pounds of tax payer’s money is being used to fund this venture. This funding is provided via Swale Forward the body set up by Swale Council to disperse the Thames Gateway funding from the ODPM.

Also rather amusingly the KM say

“If approved the refurbishment will provide an important space for more hi-tech, innovative businesses to develop in Kent”.

Rummey Design Associates the architectural practice that submitted the plans, is the same one that advises Swale Forward and therefore Swale Borough Council on the towns master planning, so no possible conflict of interest there then?