Greenheys 

A building of national significance for UK life sciences

Willmott Dixon has completed Greenheys, the £60 million laboratory and workspace development at Manchester Science Park that becomes the new headquarters of UK Biobank and the most scientifically capable building in Bruntwood SciTech’s national portfolio.

Handed over to Bruntwood SciTech on time and on budget, the 131,000 sq ft building sits on the Oxford Road Corridor knowledge quarter, the largest clinical and academic campus in Europe, and provides flexible Containment Level 2 (CL2) laboratory and write-up space for research-intensive organisations working in life sciences, biotechnology and advanced diagnostics. Manchester Science Park generates a gross value added of £3 billion a year, and knowledge-intensive industries are projected to contribute close to a quarter of the city’s economy by 2028.

Its arrival matters well beyond Manchester. UK Biobank – the world’s most comprehensive source of biological, health and lifestyle information – is relocating 11 million biological samples from freezers in Stockport to Greenheys, alongside half of its 400-strong team, supported by infrastructure funding from UK Research and Innovation. Once operational, its laboratory team will process samples four times faster than before.

Built to laboratory standards, not office standards

CL2 laboratories place demands on a building that conventional workspace never has to meet. Greenheys has been delivered with dedicated fume extraction units, high-specification local exhaust ventilation (LEV) capacity and advanced air handling engineered to support the most sophisticated analytical and research work. Every one of those systems had to be proven and signed off before a single sample could be processed in the building.

That technical envelope is wrapped around six storeys and 17,724m² of accommodation on a concrete frame, delivered under a JCT 2016 Design and Build contract on a live, occupied science park campus – the kind of scientific and logistical complexity that defines the sector and the kind Willmott Dixon is set up to handle.

What we delivered

• Flexible Containment Level 2 (CL2) laboratory and write-up space across six storeys.
• Dedicated fume extraction units, high-specification LEV capacity and advanced air handling engineered for the most sophisticated analytical and research work.
• High-security access control, with clinical waste and chemical storage.
• Goods-in areas with dedicated service lifts and loading bays designed for the logistics of moving samples, equipment and materials at scale.
• Bookable meeting facilities, break-out space, a campus café, gym, cycle storage and changing facilities.
• Manchester city centre’s largest living wall – 160,000 plants across 1,700 square metres.

Sustainability designed in from the outset

Greenheys is a fully electric building designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent, with a high-performing thermal envelope and embodied carbon targets set at the start of the programme. Its living wall – the largest in Manchester city centre – helps reduce air pollution and provides habitat for pollinators and more than 125 species of invertebrates, creating a natural counterpoint to the high-tech environment inside.

£60 million invested – and 99% of it kept in the region

Willmott Dixon and its supply chain partners spent 99% of the total project value with businesses within 40 miles of the site, keeping the economic benefit of a £60 million development in Greater Manchester and the surrounding region.

The project created 21 new employment opportunities, delivered 1,126 weeks of apprenticeship training and 101 weeks of work placements, and donated close to £30,000 to local community projects. Design and technical partners were drawn from across the north of England, including BDP’s Manchester architects, Deloitte’s Manchester-based planners and Cheshire-based I Want Plants, which delivered the living wall.

A track record across the North West

Greenheys adds to a portfolio of Willmott Dixon projects that have reshaped how parts of the North West work: Stockport Interchange, the transport, public realm and residential scheme anchoring Stockport town centre’s regeneration; the Riverside and Upperbanks schemes in Rochdale, the latter providing 242 homes and a Hampton by Hilton hotel; Station Gardens, 81 net zero homes now being built on a brownfield gateway site by Rochdale station; the £61 million rebuild of The Mosslands School in Wallasey; and the recently completed £25.6 million Pendle Police Station in Nelson for Lancashire Constabulary.

What people are saying

“Greenheys is one of the most technically demanding buildings we have delivered in the North West. Containment Level 2 laboratories carry exacting standards for air handling, extraction, security and servicing, and every one of those systems had to be right before a single sample could be processed here. Handing the building over on time and on budget is a credit to the team and to Bruntwood SciTech as a client that knew precisely what the science required. We also set out to make sure the investment stayed in the region. Alongside our supply chain partners, 99% of the total project spend went to businesses within 40 miles of the site. Buildings like Greenheys, and schemes such as Stockport Interchange, show what construction can do for a local economy as well as for a client.”

Anthony Dillon, Managing Director for the North, Willmott Dixon

“Manchester and the wider North West stands at the crossroads of a significant opportunity for economic development. The huge potential of the region’s innovation sector hinges on the development of the networks and spaces that ambitious businesses need to grow. Greenheys is part of our response to that need.The building has been created for ambitious, research-led organisations that need high-quality lab space, access to exceptional talent and direct connections into a world-class research, clinical and academic ecosystem. Reaching this milestone brings us an important step closer to welcoming UK Biobank to its new headquarters.”

Sam Darby, Development Director, Bruntwood SciTech