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Marshalls of Cambridge looking to relocate

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Marshalls of Cambridge looking to relocate

Old 15th May 2019, 10:19
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Marshalls of Cambridge looking to relocate

One site mooted is Wyton.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/new...Wu20kok8U9mVXg
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Old 15th May 2019, 10:32
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Having Marshalls at Wyton would make more sense for the airfield than the current plan for 3,500 houses; it might be a good use of a brownfield site but those people have to work somewhere and I suspect most would have to try to commute through Huntingdon or St Ives.
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Old 15th May 2019, 14:06
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I thought that the housing plan had been dropped due to the inability of local roads to cope with the estimated increase in traffic levels?
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Old 15th May 2019, 14:45
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Originally Posted by BEagle
I thought that the housing plan had been dropped due to the inability of local roads to cope with the estimated increase in traffic levels?
The planners have just OK'd this week for 6,500 homes to be built on Waterbeach, so I'm surprised the planners are bothered about the traffic impact on local roads.
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Old 15th May 2019, 15:00
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Waterbeach has an 'A' road running right past it.
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Old 15th May 2019, 15:30
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Waterbeach has an 'A' road running right past it.
True - but also it is seriously overloaded by current traffic. There is an improvement scheme, perhaps a decade from fruition.
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Old 15th May 2019, 21:14
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The other two locations are either Cranfield or Duxford, I hope it's not Duxford as it will destroy the ambience of the place and its airshows. As for Cranfield..... Well, having worked there in the past, if God was going to give the world an Enema he would stick the tube in Cranfield, I also have doubts that you would get their workforce upping sticks and moving to Bedford.
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Old 15th May 2019, 23:41
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Originally Posted by chevvron
Waterbeach has an 'A' road running right past it.
And a first class rail service on the other side.
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Old 16th May 2019, 05:16
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Originally Posted by AF03-111
Having Marshalls at Wyton would make more sense for the airfield than the current plan for 3,500 houses; it might be a good use of a brownfield site but those people have to work somewhere and I suspect most would have to try to commute through Huntingdon or St Ives.
The lack of any suitable infrastructure, with the hangars in a parlous state of repair allied to a runway in need of resurfacing would suggest the costs of relocating to Wyton would be very high.
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Old 16th May 2019, 08:00
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Originally Posted by NutLoose
The other two locations are either Cranfield or Duxford, I hope it's not Duxford as it will destroy the ambience of the place and its airshows.
This.
Especially, as the proposal was/is to build the facility on the north side of the A505 at the western end in the field used for airshow day car park, with a traffic light operated taxi-way across the A505 onto the airfield through the other field used for airshow car parking to the west of the Land Warfare Hall.......not to mention other airfield ops upgrades required.
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan

Originally Posted by NutLoose
As for Cranfield..... Well, having worked there in the past, if God was going to give the world an Enema he would stick the tube in Cranfield, I also have doubts that you would get their workforce upping sticks and moving to Bedford.
Exactly.
Wyton would obviously work from the workforce point of view, and many other issues if the proposed house building there has been canned, but the issues with the hangars and runway come into play.
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Old 16th May 2019, 08:18
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Originally Posted by just another jocky
The lack of any suitable infrastructure, with the hangars in a parlous state of repair allied to a runway in need of resurfacing would suggest the costs of relocating to Wyton would be very high.
Yep, looked in an awful state when I stopped by a few months ago. The smart money is obviously on Cranfield, with Duxford and Wyton just added in for amusement value you'd assume.
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Old 16th May 2019, 08:31
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Anyone know why Alconbury wasn't considered?
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Old 16th May 2019, 08:36
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Originally Posted by Sky Sports
Anyone know why Alconbury wasn't considered?
Because it was bought at a knock down price a few years ago by land speculators (urban & civic) and they are now busy watching the cash roll in from a horrendous combination of thousands of new builds and light industrial.

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Old 16th May 2019, 09:29
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Originally Posted by andrewn
Because it was bought at a knock down price a few years ago by land speculators (urban & civic) and they are now busy watching the cash roll in from a horrendous combination of thousands of new builds and light industrial.
And there's only about half a runway left and no large hangars.
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Old 16th May 2019, 12:03
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Mmmmm, realistic options for relocation of the MRO (hangar-based) activities could include, in no particular order. Assumes there is no reason a whole lot of the non-hangar operations couldn't stay in Cambridge - why move all of that? They propose a 5m sq.ft. business park - a pile of that could be still occupied by themselves - majority of staff need offices/workshops/stores rather than hangars. Where today they have 1.5m sq.ft. of hangars, by say 2025, they won't need a lot of that (UK Hercs phased out for example), so they almost certainly can downsize, then if there's space around the new site, build more as and when required.:

1) Duxford - forget it, no infrastructure, no space and unless someone's buying up a load of peripheral land, tiny runway

2) Cranfield - realistic option, have someone else take the burden of the costs of running the airport side. Just got outline planning for a massive air park, airport underwritten by University, in turn underwritten by loads of grants, because they're a University. Downside, runway still not so long (although plan for slight extension), long commute for ex-CBG employees - there will be some attrition as consequence.

3) Wyton - yes, BUT - frightening costs to reinstate, frightening costs to upgrade, frightening costs to keep operational, hangars inappropriate position and configuration/size so need to build new from scratch. Why on earth bear the costs of running an airport again? Go and get a long ground lease at another party's airport

4) Mildenhall - if Wyton, why not Mildenhall? Scary costs and vague as to when USAF actually vacate - 2023, 2025?

5) Alconbury - already gone to developer, but if starting from scratch, is there a deal to be done there? Hideous costs to reactivate and then run.

6) Stansted - buy the Diamond Hangar - or lease for 99 years, expand to east and west past the Ryanair hangars - loads of space. However, slots an issue, but demand/throughput would be very little, so not really an issue actually. 24 Hrs access, half an hour down the road - civil airliner market on doorstep to compliment what might be diminishing military base work.

7) Brize Norton - go where the main customer is, challenges no doubt politically and red-tape-wise, but why not? Will lose a pile of staff, but how many will they ultimately need for ongoing hangarage ops in the next decade?

8) Buy ex-Monarch sheds at Birmingham and expand behind/sideways - 24 hr ops, no slot issues, massive runway. Again, will lose a load of staff who won't migrate.

9) Go to Wales (St Athan, Cardiff, Hawarden or Cornwall (Newquay) - huge development agency subsidies and incentives, cheap deals, but huge loss of staff and miles from customer base

Thing is, after developing the Cambridge site, there will be gazillions floating in the coffers, so the family will be able to reinvest for the very long term on virtually any scale deemed appropriate. Question is what would you do if it was your family business, your money and your long-term investment strategy? They like asset-based rather than revenue based.

All above considered, they will feel a very strong need and obligation to look after staff relatively locally
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Old 16th May 2019, 12:55
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Anyone considered Waddington?
Plenty of free space, with great road and network support too.
Based alongside RAFAT would be ideal and impose no threat or confliction to the function of 3rd party RAF Operational assets at all.
And..... then comes out of the dream.
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Old 16th May 2019, 14:13
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If Cranfield is to be considered, in addition to the building of suitable hangars and associated infrastructure, some serious money is going to need to be spent on the runway and building a taxiway infrastructure that can take wide-bodied aircraft.
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Old 16th May 2019, 14:50
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Originally Posted by TCAS FAN
If Cranfield is to be considered, in addition to the building of suitable hangars and associated infrastructure, some serious money is going to need to be spent on the runway and building a taxiway infrastructure that can take wide-bodied aircraft.
Cranfield runway and taxiway mods/enhancements included in outline planning permissions for Air Park (Phase 1 & then Phase 2), so part of their plan regardless, albeit they are banking on someone else financing it all - Chinese, Middle East money or.....Marshall
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Old 16th May 2019, 14:55
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I wonder if there is actually any genuine attempt to relocate or if the actual plan is to just to flog the Cambridge site for a huge pile of cash and retire. Will there be a press statement in a few months that says something like

"We have considered all the alternatives but none of them are viable (for the reasons outlined in the threads above!). Sadly therefore we have decided to leave the aviation business."

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Old 16th May 2019, 15:39
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Originally Posted by ASRAAMTOO
I wonder if there is actually any genuine attempt to relocate or if the actual plan is to just to flog the Cambridge site for a huge pile of cash and retire. Will there be a press statement in a few months that says something like

"We have considered all the alternatives but none of them are viable (for the reasons outlined in the threads above!). Sadly therefore we have decided to leave the aviation business."
Not in a few months, but quite possibly in a few years. Although Herc support is the bread and butter and they support several air forces beyond the UK MOD, a lot of the work those overseas air forces would far prefer to be done (by those governments) in their own countries where Marshall set up ops there, in country and in process train their own native people how to do the work. Anything physically done in the UK usually has to be offset by business generated in that country - i.e. a £50m deal with Denmark or Botswana to modify their aircraft in the UK will have to have £50m of work created in Denmark or Botswana for something else. Those deals are a pain in the backside to facilitate. With more of that philosophy and the UK Hercs being phased out (by when?), all that C130 demand in the UK will diminish radically and the odd, big, civil airliner upgrade is not going to pay the wages at the rates they need to charge to be competitive with say Eastern European MROs - trying to charge say £55/hour in the UK when the work can be done for £40/hour in Slovakia means you either barely break-even or you don't win the work in the first place. Marshall's greatest strength is their project management capability and their design capability - all back-office. Turning spanners they're good at too, but not at a competitive price on the world stage - unless at paper-thin margins. They're also very good at designing and making bespoke, low volume sub-assemblies, specialist components etc., none of which needs a runway or hangars. Much as they would like to do much more special missions conversions for which the global market is huge, they will never compete with US players on a cost-effective basis but they do have all the expertise, but limited in-house intellectual property.

So, where they have 1.5m sq.ft. of hangarage today, chances are they'll only need a third of that by 2025 - or they just give up that part of the equation and remain a design and project management house with component and sub-assembly manufacturing capabilities - all of which can continue on any business park in Cambridge, or anywhere else in the country.
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