A joint venture (JV) company redeveloping a former steelworks site in North Lanarkshire has put its plans on hold.

Ravenscraig Ltd has announced its intention to update proposals for the site to ensure it is fully in line with current market conditions.

Over £200m has been invested in the Ravenscraig site since work began in 2006.

Features include a new campus for New College Lanarkshire, a new £32m regional sports facility, 330 new homes sold and a £2.9m pub and restaurant built by brewers Marston's

The developers have also completed large scale remediation of a heavy industrial site to provide useful, safe and attractive development land.

The JV, a partnership between Wilson Bowden, Tata Steel and Scottish Enterprise, is to now bring forward revised plans.


While the proposals are still to be finalised, it's expected that they will involve further high quality housing and an element of retail.

The JV company is now working closely with North Lanarkshire Council to finalise the revised plans.

At a recent board meeting, Ravenscraig Ltd decided that the town centre element of the original plan should be put on hold.

In addition, all partners will continue to work together to better understand the potential opportunities where Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) might be used to help unlock future economic growth.

Construction operations director, Nick Davies, said: "We believe this is the right time to bring forward a revised plan which can continue the regeneration of Ravenscraig and bring forward further developments quickly and in line with market demand.

"The original masterplan was created 15 years ago when the world was a very different place. Legal action held up progress for five years before the House of Lords gave final approval and this was, of course, followed by the global recession.

"Since then, the retail market has been transformed due to the growth of online shopping and changing consumer demands.  It's these kind of changes that the revised masterplan will seek to take into account."

(LM/CD)