South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) has put its flagship science and technology park up for sale.
SGS acquired the 45-acre Berkeley Green site from the Nuclear decommissioning Authority for £3m in 2016. A total of 10 organisations, including the SGS University Technical College - which is not part of the sale - are based at the park.
The sale comes after chamber of commerce Business West recently told BuisnessLive that government organisation Great British Nuclear was compiling a shortlist of six sites to build new mini-power stations or small-medium reactors (SMRS), and that two of those sites could be in Gloucestershire - at Berkeley and Oldbury.
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The plants are around a tenth of the size of a conventional nuclear plant, and could each generate enough power for around one million homes. The plans, which have already generated hundreds of millions of pounds of investment and are expected to create thousands of jobs.
Senior representatives from engineering giant Rolls-Royce - which has previously announced plans to build a national fleet of SMRs - are also understood to have visited the two Gloucestershire sites earlier this year.
Kevin Hamblin, group chief executive of SGS College, said: “Berkeley Green is a strategic asset to Gloucestershire, but as a college we cannot do anything novel or anything that requires us to borrow money. We know that the site needs money put into it for development so the only option we have is to sell the lease to the land”.
“I believe the value of our site is in the possible siting of the SMRs and the industries associated with that development. I am really excited by the prospect of the SMRs coming to Gloucestershire—it would be great for the economy of our county and local jobs.”
SGS College said it was now looking for expressions of interest to develop the Berkeley site by the end of October, with final proposals to be submitted by Christmas.
