Marshall Aerospace Relocation

Marshall granted Outline Planning Approval for relocation of its Aerospace business to Cranfield.

Marshall Aerospace is one of the largest independent aerospace and defence companies in the world, and delivers innovation and excellence in engineering, support solutions and services on civil and military aircraft platforms.

Our intention is to establish a new headquarters in the UK for our operations and workforce, with additional operations running in parallel in North America and the Middle East. In 2019, we announced our intention to relocate our UK headquarters 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.

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.

This has been a big decision for us to take, given our long-standing relationship with Cambridge, our workforce and our 113 year history.

Consultation on our proposals

We held extensive consultations on our relocation proposals and future operations throughout 2022 in order to provide a full response was to key questions raised by community members.

While the consultation period has ended, you can still view or download the consultation materials using the links below:

Marshall Aerospace Relocation Exhibition Material (July 2022)
Download PDF

Information about Marshall and our relocation plans (March 2022)
Download PDF

Emerging design proposals (March 2022)
Download PDF

Outline Planning Application

AUTUMN 2022
Our outline planning application was submitted to Central Bedfordshire Council in Autumn 2022.
Reference: CB/22/04299/OUT
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SPRING 2023
Central Bedfordshire Council passed a resolution to grant our outline planning application on April 19th, 2023.
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