Sheffield Forgemasters to house some of the world’s largest vertical turning lathes
McLaughlin & Harvey has been appointed to deliver the main construction works for Sheffield Forgemasters’ new machine shop under a £210m contract.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD-) owned firm is building the 30,000 square metre facility on a 16-acre brownfield site on Weedon Street, Sheffield, adjacent to its Brightside Lane base.
Designed by Bond Bryan Architects, the building will house 24 machines, including some of the world’s largest vertical turning lathes.
Arup provided ecological and transport assessments, while JLL supported site acquisition and planning.
McLaughlin & Harvey had already carried out enabling works and is progressing advanced works, which include piling for the superstructure, laying machine base foundations, and installing site-wide drainage and stormwater attenuation systems.
Long-term MOD investment
The main works form a central element of Sheffield Forgemasters’ recapitalisation programme, a long-term MoD investment initiative intended to upgrade the UK’s defence-critical manufacturing capacity.
Craig Fisher, programme director for recapitalisation at Sheffield Forgemasters, said the piling phase had included installation of more than 4,000 piles, capping beams and pile caps. Structural steelwork is scheduled to begin in January 2026.
The machine shop will sit alongside a separate project to build a 13,000-tonne open-die forging line, also under way on the North Brightside Lane site.
The combined facilities will be used to train engineers in Industry 4.0 manufacturing methods to support the UK defence sector.
McLaughlin & Harvey managing director Paul Griffen – pictured (left) with Sheffield Forgemasters programme director Craig Fisher – said the scheme reinforced the contractor’s credentials in complex manufacturing and defence projects.
Source: Construction News
