MIRA Tech Park: The UK’s Natural Home for Next Generation Vehicle Development

As we start 2025 with more positive news from MIRA Tech Park building on the success of public and private investment working together over the last decade, we also wait for an Industrial Strategy that continues to support our global leading mobility cluster. Our Development Director Andy Macdonald reflects on how critical the right property solution in the right location is to driving place-based growth.

Before my involvement at MIRA Tech Park, my career in property development was built on delivering major regeneration and destination schemes across the UK, typically with multi-phased delivery and long gestation periods. The success of these major developments was a mix of ingredients, critically understanding the local dynamics of land delivery and infrastructure planning, but also the strength of local partnerships and engaged stakeholders.?All of that experience has been fundamental in delivering over a decade of masterplanned development here at MIRA, which will now see the technology cluster grow to over 4 million sq. ft.

Major regeneration schemes need to focus on place-making and a mix of use to generate vibrancy and meet market demand, but it is the journey here at MIRA Tech Park that has taught me to appreciate the natural home and cluster growth when it comes to high tech, high potential businesses. The right location with the right neighbours and future-proofed infrastructure accelerates growth. MIRA Tech Park is a natural home for certain types of UK and global businesses and that is why we face the continual challenge of building the right property to accommodate our occupiers when they land here within the technology cluster, and to optimise their growth.

Who are our ‘natural’ occupiers? I can give you some examples:

Warwick Acoustics Ltd - our ‘poster child’ UK owned university spinout who have developed their sustainably manufactured patented audio technology using HORIBA MIRA ’s product development and verification expertise and accessed a global market through the relationships they have made with co-tenants at the Tech Park.

ClearMotion - an MIT spinout who have similarly secured significant investment from being able to demonstrate a clear route to market through our facilities and our cluster tenants including EV manufacturer NIO蔚来 .

Polestar - a disruptor to the EV market, Polestar chose MIRA Tech Park as the location to develop their new model 5 and 6 because of the extensive engineering expertise and full suite of testing infrastructure available. Bringing a new EV to market is costly and finding the right talent is also a challenge. With our site, Polestar could dip into our engineering specialisms when needed whilst using our talent development partnerships to develop their own teams. Close proximity to testing infrastructure means time is optimised in the development process and prototypes are kept secure and confidential. The carbon and financial cost of moving expensive and critical development models even just a few miles is eliminated and those savings are crucial.

I could go on. Another UK start-up VIRITECH have developed their hydrogen vehicle technology using our digital twin expertise and hydrogen infrastructure. REE Automotive have developed their game-changing electric truck corner steering technology to production-ready from our site and are manufacturing these specialist units in the West Midlands. But I could also highlight companies who have thrived here in developing their future mobility products and technologies and been enticed out of the UK with incentives and subsidies. That’s why we are delivering larger R&D building footprints on the North campus, and why we have designed major advanced manufacturing potential into our masterplan for the South Site.

Through the construction during 2024 and over the next 12 months, the front of MIRA Tech Park is going to start to look very different and we are excited about the new dynamic this next phase will bring for the community onsite and for the communities around us. It’s great to see our global reach celebrated in the UK Government’s Invest 2035 prospectus last year but it is just as important that we are a good neighbour to Hinckley and Bosworth, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth too.

The catalyst to kickstart MIRA Tech Park was the financial support we got through the UK Regional Growth Fund for delivery of major road and power infrastructure to futureproof the development, and the enabler for this most recent phase was our Enterprise Zone Retained Business Rates. What we need next from Government is a commitment to attracting the right businesses and supporting them to grow in their natural home. We can deliver the property but the policy remains confusing especially for global companies. Enterprise Zones, Investment Zones, Freeports - I understand the need to define the specialisms of different locations but I am concerned where this has engineered the ability to offer different incentives for locations that could be just a few miles apart! We can trust smart companies to make smart decisions on their natural home and our job is to attract them to the UK and support them to grow in the UK. National Insurance incentives for rapidly expanding high tech, people intensive businesses is a great policy, but not when limited by an administrative boundary. It should be about supporting the companies we want to attract to this unique technology cluster, and not engineering a location based on fiscal attraction.

I am very excited to shortly share with you the new companies we have secured as occupiers in our new developments and the opportunities they bring for high value local employment and related supply chains. And as we also work hard on creating and enhancing the right natural habitats for the 400 species of flora and fauna we have on site, I hope Government regionally and nationally will continue to work with us on building the UK’s natural home for next generation vehicle development and clean-tech mobility in MIRA Tech Park.