Works nearing completion at St Michaels Trading Estate

Works costing more than £1 million at the Tower Building of St Michael’s Trading Estate in Bridport are nearing completion.

A devastating fire tore through the Tower Building in July 2018 destroying art studios offices and offices.

Six tenants were displaced in the immediate aftermath, and 14 tenants in the longer term.

The Tower Building at St Michael's Trading Estate was destroyed in a fire in July 2018

It’s been a long road back for the rebuild with many delays before the work was even commissioned, which Haywards and Co, the owners of the estate, put down to dragged out negotiations between themselves, loss adjusters and contractors.

The restoration works didn’t begin until November last year, more than two years after the building was destroyed, and since then have been subject to delays.

The tower building in the aftermath of the fire Picture: St Michael's Trading Estate

But the end is now in sight, with works expected to be completed between mid-October and mid-November, and the management team at the estate are now looking forward to how the space will be utilised. The rebuilt Tower Building will be home to 11 units and studios overall.

Since January 2020, 133 people have registered an interest in moving their business to one of the building’s new units - with businesses ranging from breweries to jewellery makers, sculptors and ceramics sellers.

Martin Ridley, the estate manager, said: “It’s been a bit of a nightmare but it will all be worth it. We’re excited that the work is nearing its end.”

“It’s much more positive to be thinking about sending invites to people and deciding who is going to fill these spaces than dealing with loss adjusters.

Works are anticipated to be completed between October and November Picture: Bradley White

He added: “The frustration for us is that we can only take a select few of the applicants. We’re going to try to be as fair and as even handed as we can be. The priority has to be to build on the variety of businesses we have and to continue to focus on small businesses.”

When there is a definitive date in place as to when the work will be completed, there will be a series of open days at the estate which everyone who has registered their interest in a unit will be invited to.

11 units will be available in total once works are completed Picture: Bradley White

Further plans remain in the works for the regeneration of the estate in general over the coming years.

Mr Ridley added: “The regeneration of the tower building acts as a microcosm for the bigger plans. We want to maintain the uniqueness of the estate whilst also making it a more unique environment.

“The plan is eventually for St Michael’s to become a destination. We want people to come to Bridport to visit the estate and we want to be able to offer people the widest variety of businesses.

Work at the site began in November 2020 Picture: Bradley White

The ‘tower alleyway’, which runs form the entrance down to the Red Brick café, will also reopen when works are complete.

Works on the site began in November last year, after a deal was agreed for the Jones Building Group to carry out the works on the estate.

The original aim was for the works to be completed in May but it was quickly understood that this would not be the case.

Due to the age of the building, originally built in the early 1800s, much work was needed to be done to repair the structure of the building. Site manager Richard McElliott said at one point there were 110 Acrow Props - a tool used to support overhead loads - in place just to hold the building together.

Mr McElliott said: “Once we started it quickly became evident how much more needed to rectified. We spent 20 weeks just doing structure repairs which delayed the start of the project.

“The building was built in the early 1800s and there was a building at the same location before that. Some of the structure was still left over from that original building. Anything that wasn’t burned in the fire was rotting and these were all things that were unforeseen and really held the project up.

The works have seen many delays for a variety of reasons Picture: Bradley White

“It wasn’t until around May that we were able to get back on to the programmed works.

The works have suffered more set backs since then, for a number of reasons including the national shortage of materials and lorry drivers, technical design issues and problems with supporting rooftop scaffolding.

Mr McElliott added: “It’s been a never ending battle really, coming out of Covid and then straight into this material shortage. We’ve been struggling with supplies and jobs that were taking a few days before, can suddenly take up to a month. Some manufacturers we’ve tried to order materials from have told us there’s a six month wait.

“It’s one thing after another and it creates a knock on effect, an issue with one job then holds up the next one.

“With the situation around the materials at the moment we can’t say a definitive date but we’re making progress and we’re not far off.

“Every time we turned a corner we seemed to hit something else. We’re done our best in a bad situation and all things considered we’ve done extremely well considering the circumstances.”