Sherwood Energy Village calls in receivers
Sherwood Energy Village (SEV), the Nottinghamshire not-for-profit business park, has called in the receivers after it defaulted on bank loan payments. Tenants at the site have been told their leases will be honoured, but 10 members of staff have been made redundant, it has emerged.
SEV is home to 20 offices and industrial units and has created 1,500 jobs. Tenants include holiday company Center Parcs and Nottinghamshire County Council.
Stan Crawford, chief executive of SEV, said the board had begun insolvency proceedings after the bank called in a loan that the company had taken out to finance the upgrade of utility supplies.
He said the upgrade was needed for a planned development of 196 new homes on the site.
Eleven homes were completed in the first phase of a development that was intended to eventually build almost 200 homes. However, Crawford said, SEV was unable to sell them after the downturn in the housing market. They are now mothballed.
The 36-hectare site features low-carbon houses and uses sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) to reduce flood risks. It was bought from British Coal, which gave it an interest free mortgage due to the sustainable nature of the scheme. It was purchased for £50,000.
It was built using money from the East Midlands Development Agency (Emda) which used grants through the National Coalfields Programme, and is based on the site of a former mining community in Ollerton whose colliery closed in 1994.
The scheme aimed to reclaim the site, creating 1,000 new jobs in 20 years. SEV won the Royal Town Planning Institute’s top prize for planning in 2008.
