West Midlands Interchange (WMI), Four Ashes
Introduction
The West Midlands has a shortage of suitable quality development land for large scale rail linked logistics warehousing. Kilbride selected the site at Four Ashes following a review of the region and signed up land options over the site. The project was taken through the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) planning process gaining the necessary PINS support before the RSS was abolished. A major National Infrastructure planning application for warehousing and a large scale intermodal rail terminal was prepared by Kilbride with funding provided by Grosvenor Group. The Development Consent Order was approved by the Secretary of State for Transport in May 2020 and the West Midlands Interchange project (WMI) was then sold to Oxford Properties and Logistics Capital Partners to secure funding and take the project through the development phase. Kilbride continue to be involved, leading the delivery of the rail infrastructure.
Location
The site is unique in that it has excellent nearby road and rail infrastructure together with the scale of developable land capable of delivering warehouse units over 1m square feet.
The site is located on Junction 12 of the M6 and is bounded by the A5 to the north and the A449 dual carriageway to the west, with the Wolverhampton to Stafford section of the West Coast Mainline running through the site.
The Development
WMI is expected to generate around £430 million of local economic activity each year and is forecast to create up to 8,500 jobs at the site.
As a prime rail-served logistics site it extends to 734 acres allowing 8 million sq ft of warehouse units to be developed with units ranging from 200,000 sq ft to 1.2m sq.
A 775m length intermodal rail freight terminal will be developed. Rail freight produces 70% less carbon dioxide, up to 15 times lower nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly 90% lower particulate emissions than road freight tonne for tonne.
The site will also deliver two new community parks of circa 109 acres (44 hectares) in total.
