Brompton Bikes plans £100m wetland factory on stilts | Cycling | The Guardian
Britain’s biggest cycle maker commissions circular factory over Ashford floodplain with capacity to make 200,000 bikes a year
Jasper Jolly
Brompton has revealed plans to invest as much as £100m in a new UK factory that will secure its place as the UK’s biggest bicycle manufacturer. In an added twist it has decided to reject the normal grey shed, instead opting to build its plant on stilts amid a newly restored wetland.
The folding bike maker plans for the new site at Ashford in Kent to be open by 2027, on a 40 hectare (100 acre) floodplain. The stilts will be needed to prevent the factory being regularly inundated. It will also have no new car parking, instead relying on new pedestrian and cycle paths from the train station.
