The latest Press Release from Dyson - the planning application for the MasterPlan for the airfield has been submitted to Wiltshire Council but is not yet available on line, I will post it on here when it is. I think many will find the Dyson Magazine very interesting.
on.dyson.co.uk Hopefully the link will work I think you will have to copy and paste it.
PRESS RELEASE STRICTLY EMBARGOED: 00:01 BST Thursday 30th August
Dyson reveals £200m investment in Wiltshire as it embarks on the next phase of Electric Vehicle development:
Phase two of the Hullavington Airfield plan outlines a £200m investment for UK expansion. Dyson’s 400 strong automotive team have now moved onto the airfield
Plans show extensive vehicle testing facilities.
Hullavington Airfield, Wiltshire, UK. Following the recent occupation of the restored hangars at Hullavington Airfield, Dyson has outlined the next phase of the development of the campus.
Together with Sterling Prize winning architect Chris Wilkinson, Dyson is already restoring and enhancing the airfield, carefully breathing life back into the historic World War Two hangars to create state-of-the-art engineering work spaces.
To date, Dyson has invested £84m into its new technology centre with the restoration of the first two 1938 hangars. 400 members of Dyson automotive team have now moved into the advanced automotive space and a further three buildings are on course for delivery over the coming months, providing an additional 15,000m2 of testing space.
Hullavington Phase Two:
The phase two plan outlines the next stage in the airfield’s development and would take Dyson’s investment to £200m. The planning application includes over ten miles of vehicle test tracks for vehicle development and verification. In addition it outlines 45,000sqm of new development space which could accommodate over 2,000 people as well as a café; sports centre; recreation space; and supporting technical facilities.
The testing track proposals include:
Dynamic Handling Track – a specialised track to assess and tune all aspects of ride, handling, steering and brakes
Vehicle Stability Dynamic Platform – a large asphalt covered area for testing vehicle manoeuvrability
Off Road Route – a mixed driving route that simulates the challenges of driving off road through soft and
varied terrain
Hill and Handling Road Route – a simulation of a challenging fast road route incorporating corners of differing severity and changes in altitude
Fast Road Route –a track to test a vehicle up to its maximum speed as well as the functionality of advanced driver assistance systems
Test Slopes – differing gradients for testing powertrain functionality
Jim Rowan, Dyson, CEO, said: “Our growing automotive team is now working from Dyson’s state-of-the-art hangars at Hullavington Airfield. It will quickly become a world-class vehicle testing campus where we hope to invest £200m, creating more high-skilled jobs for Britain. We are now firmly focused on the next stage of our automotive project strengthening our credentials as a global research and development organisation”
About Hullavington
Construction of Hullavington Airfield commenced in 1936 as the Air Ministry set about developing a Flight Training School. In the early days its runways were grass and its first aircraft biplanes, but Hullavington quickly expanded and became a significant airfield.
With the beginning of the Second World War, top officers from allied nations came to Hullavington to share strategies and deepen their understanding of how to fly aircraft to the point of limit. By 1940 Hullavington was a base for aircraft from Mosquitoes, Spitfires and Lancasters to Douglas Bostons, North American Mitchells and GAL Hotspur troop-carrying gliders. By the end of the war there were over 1,000 aircraft based on the airfield.
The airfield has architectural significance, bringing together the architectural influences of Blomfield and Lutyens, Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus school. It is probably the most representative surviving example of Royal Air Force architecture of the post 1934 "Expansion Period".
A branch of the Met Office was stationed at Hullavington during WW2. A balloons and aircraft were used to collect weather data for the Met Office. The Balloon Operations Squadron was disbanded in 1995 and the last RAF balloon flew over Hullavington on 29th March 1995.
The Parachute Packing Unit was also located at Hullavington, with vast parachute drying ovens within
the hangars. Production lines were staffed by smartly dressed teams, carefully packing the parachutes away – safely – for their next exercise.
Since 1995, the airfield has been largely inactive until 2016 when Dyson purchased it with cross-Government support. The barracks are currently occupied by 9 Theatre Logistic Regiment Royal Logistic Corps (RLC)
- ENDS-
Notes to Editors
About Dyson
Dyson is a global technology company with engineering and testing operations in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and the UK. Dyson employs over 12,000 people globally including 4,500 engineers and scientists – with an increasing proportion in South East Asia where production and operations also take place. Total UK headcount has increased 2.5 times over the last five years alone to 4,800.
Dyson is realising ambitious plans to develop new technologies with global teams focused on the development of solid state battery cells, high-speed electric motors, vision systems, machine learning technologies, and AI.
Dyson’s 67 acre campus in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, is also home to the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, which opened in September 2017. Dyson is making a £31m investment into UK higher education to help overcome the shortage of engineers in the UK. The four year degree programme, free of tuition fees, covers the fundamentals of engineering in years one and two. It delivers electronics and mechanical engineering content in years three and four – all alongside a paid job within Dyson’s research and development team, working on real products, with leading engineers and scientists.
About Dyson’s Battery Electric Car
In September 2017 Dyson revealed that it has been working on a vehicle over the previous three years. It announced that it would be investing £2bn into the development of the BEV for launch in 2021. The project builds on Dyson’s existing expertise in solid state batteries, motors, vision systems, robotics, HVAC and aerodynamics. It represents an ambitious project on tight timelines.
Dyson is currently recruiting an additional 300 automotive roles.
Local information
Alongside plans for the campus, Dyson has outlined road improvements, to improve safety and traffic flow on the A429. A new three-arm roundabout is proposed from the C1 Hullavington Road in the north eastern part of the site. This in turn will connect to a new three arm roundabout on the A429 via a new realigned link road. The connecting link road between the two roundabouts will replace the existing alignment of the C1 Hullavington Road, which is narrow and has tight bends. The old alignment will be retained as a service road for the existing properties/businesses on the north side of Hullavington Road.
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