After more twists and turns than a Formula One race track and a planning narrative that dates back to 2023 when it first landed on their desks link, Stroud District Council has voted to THROW OUT the vision of Renishaw founder, the late Sir David McMurtry, by rejecting its plan to build an ultramodern “campus-style” factory and hypercar showroom on the edge of Wotton-under-Edge.
With earth shattering stats that include 0-60mph in 1.55 seconds and onto a 100mph in 2.63 seconds, this newcomer put Gloucestershire in pole position as the birthplace and home of the fastest car in the world but the Spéirling now appears destined to remain in its temporary plant in Wotton-under-Edge for the foreseeable future – and inevitable questions re-emerging over a potential business grab for South Wales.
McMurtry Automotive asked for permission to build its 6,315sqm manufacture, research and development and sales centre on the greenfield site immediately next door to Renishaw PLC’s New Mills global HQ, with access, after much deliberation, proposed from the B4058 roundabout on Charfield Road, close to Kingswood.
The project promised 50 jobs, with the longer-term prospect of up to 300 staff being on site.
The node for proposed site access already serves as main entry for Renishaw, the proposed development land being owned by the family of Sir David, who died in December 2024.
Stewarded by sons Ben and Richard McMurtry, McMurtry Automotive’s plan was for the facility to act as a lure for international high-value clients – identified as being predominantly from the USA and Arab states – the site serving as a place where they could sign on the dotted line for the their own Spéirling and see their dream machine being finalised.
Costing up to £1.2m subject to final spec and taxes, the car has put Gloucestershire on the global map for automotive progress after it smashed existing world speed and performance records, not least new records at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hill Climb, a Top Gear track record that saw the title holder, an F1 car, eat its dust, and a new lap record at Wiltshire’s Castle Coombe circuit while set to just 80% of its full power. On the notorious Hockenheimring, the car also set the fastest ever record for a ‘closed wheel’ car.
So where did it all go wrong?
SDC’s Development Control Meeting on Thursday July 28 paid heed to the timescale.
Its backgrounder for the basis of a vote said: “The application has been live for circa three years. During this period, there have been discussions between the agent and the council seeking to find solutions to progress the application to determination”.
It added that the emerging local plan, now re-opened following pushback from Westminster, was a “material consideration in the determination of the application as the wider site forms an allocation site in the such [sic] local plan.”
Feedback from local parish councils showed that:
● Kingswood supported the 25% biodiversity net gain that had been determined from the project when measured against its value as an existing parcel of farmland.
● Wotton applauded the employment opportunities but voiced concern over “access, drainage concerns, visual impact,” and and “out of date transport plan”.
●Charfield most overtly objected, citing how the “value of new employment cannot outweigh the additional traffic, loss of open green space”.
Policy guidance, councillors were told, determined that the bid was on open countryside.
Contributions from the go-ahead were also lined up for the Wotton-to-Charfield Greenway cycle and walking track, local bus funding and the completion costs on the near-finished Charfield Railway Station, although planners were told no Section 106 detailing had been achieved.
At the meeting, Morgan Elliot, who represented the bid, said it was precisely “the type of high-value business the district and county should support and retain”.
Agent Daniel Jones told councillors McMurtry Automotive needed certainty to invest, grow and remain in the area, and that the go ahead would bring highly skilled engineering jobs to GL12 while supporting a successful local business, which is operating for the interim in premises loaned by Renishaw at Old Town, in Wotton.
However, Cllr Dave Matthews (Labour, Cainscross) said: “There is a tremendous warmth towards the McMurtry family, to David McMurtry specifically and to Renishaw,” but added: “It seems to me that it’s very clear that this application doesn’t comply with the things we would normally expect to see in an application.”
The new building would “dramatically” change the view of the open countryside, he said, and impact on wildlife remained uncertain.
As such, he did not believe sufficient justification had been established.
Councillors voted eight to one to reject the bid – but the refusal puts the applicant at a crossroads.
Back in February this year, Renishaw confimed it had made space at Old Town for the Spéirling to retain its momentum and the dated plant has been the temporary digs for the project since then, but in July 2023, the prospect of the business upping sticks to South Wales was aired by a planing insider who told Punchline-Gloucester.com that the early intransigence of Ebley Mill might force the decision to use expansive opportunities at Renishaw’s Miskin site.
Punchline has approached McMurtry Automotive for comment.
● Mark Owen, Editor of Punchline-Gloucester.com said: “This would be joke if it wasn’t so tragic. The hypercar is the legacy dream of Renishaw’s founder and now the project is potentially now being pointed across the Severn Bridge, taking all the job prospects, youth and training opportunities and attendant supply chain and secondary economic benefits with it. I have no doubt that business-minded authorities in Miskin would welcome this with open arms. There is already so much great generation going on in and around Newport. Now we may well be handing them the keys to this supercar dream.”
