Marshall Aerospace Relocation

Marshall is bringing forward proposals to relocate its global Aerospace headquarters and operations to Cranfield Airport.

In 2019, we announced our intention to relocate our Aerospace business from Cambridge, as part of our commitment to invest in the long-term future of the company.

Following a comprehensive site assessment process, we signed an Option Agreement with Cranfield University in 2020 for approximately 35 hectares of land at Cranfield Airport, which enables us to build new state-of-the-art facilities to support our aerospace operations along with shared use of the Airport and associated support facilities. The relocation presents an exciting opportunity for us, allowing us to invest in the future of our existing workforce as well as create new employment, and training opportunities for the local area through our outstanding apprenticeship programmes. This is a big decision for us to take, given our long-standing relationship with Cambridge, our workforce and our 113 year history.

Relocation plans

Marshall Aerospace specialises in the routine Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO), conversion and modification of military aircraft, predominantly the iconic C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Our intention is to establish a new global headquarters in the UK for our operations and workforce, with supporting satellite operations in North America and the Middle East.

At capacity, we anticipate that the Aerospace business will employ up to 1,200 people at Cranfield, many of whom will be involved in the skilled hands-on maintenance of the aircraft, whilst the others will cover a wide range of support and managerial roles.

The next key stage in our forward planning is to seek Outline Planning Permission for new facilities to support our operations at Cranfield, prior to us making a final commitment to move.

Consultation on our proposals

We are currently preparing our proposals for the relocation to Cranfield and welcome all feedback from the community to help inform the future outline planning application design.

See below for how to view and comment on our plans.

Consultation

As a follow up to our initial consultation in March 2022, we held a second public exhibition in July to provide more detail on our relocation proposals and future operations and respond to some of the questions raised by community members at our previous events.

View our proposals

If you were unable to attend our exhibition dates in person, you can view or download the consultation materials using the link below:

Marshall Aerospace Relocation Exhibition Material (July 2022)
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Consultation on our draft proposals has now closed. Thank you to all who took the time to provide feedback. We are aiming to finalise the proposals and submit our planning application in the Autumn.

Previous consultation

We held an initial consultation in March 2022 where we presented an introduction to our relocation plans and what this would entail for the community to view and comment on.

You can view the material from the March exhibition below.

Information about Marshall and our relocation plans (March 2022)
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Emerging design proposals (March 2022)
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