A Co Armagh manufacturing company is planning a huge investment which is expected to create a major jobs boost for the area.
Forklift giant Hyster-Yale – based at Carn in Craigavon – is currently celebrating 40 years in business in Co Armagh.
It has already completed a number of extensions over recent years and led recruitment drives to fulfil new vacancies.
In June this year it officially unveiled a new 60,000 sq ft facility which it named the Sands Building, after Harry Sands, the company’s vice-president who had retired the previous year.
It did so with the assistance of Invest NI.
But 2022 will bring news of further development with extension plans which would be more than double the size of the Sands Building.
The company will unwrap, in January, details of its future expansion plans.
It will include two extensions to the existing industrial unit and will provide additional floorspace of close to 140,000 sq ft.
A pre-application notice has been submitted to Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council.
The tendering of such a notice would give an indication that development plans would fall within the major category.
It is expected that proposals would represent a multi-million pound investment, making a huge contribution to the local economy with additional wages through a significant number of expected new jobs.
The development – if approved – would be built on “lands immediately adjacent to and to the west of 88 Charlestown Road, Carn”.
A full planning application has yet to follow.
But as well as the extensions, Hyster-Yale hopes to add an associated yard compound, parking and landscaping, while moving to the “relocation of existing infrastructure and ancillary site works”.
The company intends to reveal its intentions online via the Clyde Shanks website on January 31, 2022.
Residents living within 500 metres of the site will be written to 10 days earlier and informed of the proposals, at the same time political representatives for the area will be notified of the company’s aspirations.
Views given during the public consultation will then be taken on board prior to the submission of papers seeking full planning approval.
