Rolton Group Growth Continues With New North East Location

The growing Rolton Group team now includes six colleagues based in the North East, who have made themselves at home in their new office at the Cobalt Business Exchange. This is our fifth UK office, providing a fantastic meeting place and strategic marketing hub to enhance our team’s presence in the North East region.

“Building on our involvement with the ongoing Britishvolt Gigaplant project in Blyth, we have been actively establishing a team here in the North East,” shares Andrew Glancey, Associate Director at our new location. “Newcastle is a fantastic city that boasts ample opportunity with access to the wider North East region for building client relationships and generating new workflow. Acquiring a permanent base for our growing regional team was the next logical step and one that supports our strategic business objectives for expansion. Really exciting times and a defining moment for Rolton Group!”

An SME with decades of experience delivering world-class facilities within the automotive and advanced manufacturing industry, and holding a rich track record across several strategic energy projects of national significance, Rolton Group was appointed in 2020 as lead engineering consultants for the development of Britishvolt’s £3.8billion Gigaplant in Blyth. Planning approval was granted unanimously for this – the UK’s first ever full-scale Gigaplant – in July 2021, with our appointment to provide multi-disciplinary engineering designs and consultancy following our team’s provision of strategic energy advice to the UK Government, in a project assessing suitable sites for Gigaplants across the UK.

Craig Smith, Managing Director of Rolton Group, said: “With such an iconic, major project ongoing and several other clients and design team partners based in the region, expanding our operations to Newcastle has been an excellent move for us; but we’re not just here for the Gigaplant.

Alongside the Britishvolt project, earlier this year we were successfully appointed on the Prosper Design and Consultancy Framework for the provision of three separate Lots; Ground Investigations & Remediation Needs, Civil & Structural Engineering, and Mechanical & Electrical (MEP) Engineering Design. Awarded via an open-market tender process in which Rolton Group scored 100% on quality criteria for all three lots, the 24-month framework agreement provides easy access to specialist design and consultancy services for members of Prosper and other Public Sector Contracting Bodies in the North East, Cumbria and North Yorkshire, for a wide variety of construction and development projects.

Craig continues: “In addition to successful appointment on the Prosper framework (amongst other projects), we’ve seen the Government’s levelling up agenda - which includes 18 North East locations identified as priority category one areas - showing a renewed focus nationally on the economic opportunities that exist in towns and cities outside of the traditional financial and economic centres of London and the South East. Making our own commitment to the North East region by establishing a permanent team and office here underlines our confidence in both the future opportunities of exciting developments to come and in the talented, local individuals working in (and joining) the construction industry.”

Working in partnership with Northumbria University, we have also launched the Rolton Group Engineering Scholarships for 2022. Established to support the growth of an underrepresented group in the engineering field and worth £6,000 each, two scholarships will be awarded this September to academically gifted Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women to support their studies on one of Northumbria’s engineering courses.

“Establishing a permanent office in the North East is an excellent step forward, strengthening our team to ensure we continue serving our clients and projects efficiently while maintaining a personal touch,” Craig said. “I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Rolton Group – without their continued efforts, none of this would be possible.”

If you would like to meet with our North East team, please e-mail Associate Director, Andrew Glancey via andrew.glancey@rolton.com.