Business Comes Naturally at Ransom Wood

If you go down to the woods in Nottinghamshire today you’re in for a big surprise – they’ve been transformed into a sustainable home for business. The wood in question is Ransom Wood on the outskirts of Mansfield, which was once home to a hospital but has now been turned into one of the best-kept commercial property secrets in North Notts.

Ransom Wood Business Park is now home to a number of private and public sector organisations, who have taken advantage of a site which blends a countryside setting with state-of-the-art facilities and close proximity to major road networks. It has been developed under the guidance of the Cannon family, well-known in North Notts for their associations with Mansfield Sand but now devoted to the long-term growth of Ransom Wood.

James Cannon, MD of Ransomwood Estates, says that though the concept appears different to conventional business parks, it is grounded in a site which started with a number of inbuilt advantages. “It had buildings and a fully-developed infrastructure already on site because of its previous use,” he said. “What we have done is use those as the basis for our concept, which is that of a sustainable business location which is, in some ways, ahead of its time.

“We have refurbished existing property, developed new buildings and new facilities and we are now more than 80 per cent full at this stage of development. This has given us a strong community of organisations and businesses – but there is clearly potential for more. We have certainly got some ambitious targets for what this site can achieve for its tenants and as a sustainable site which sets new standards for its relationship with the environment, but the bottom line is that it works as a commercial location.”

The park, which is being marketed by surveyor Laura West from the Nottingham property consultancy FHP, is already home to a number of NHS organisations, a college’s admin nerve centre, specialist engineering businesses, marketing and media companies, a furnishing business, and IT and consulting companies.

Between them, Ransom Wood Business Park’s occupiers employ around 800 people across more than a dozen buildings.

It covers some 70 acres, has on-site support staff available round-the-clock and also features an on-site restaurant and conference centre in the shape of Forever Green, a standalone building which means businesses do not need to leave the site to entertain or hold meetings. Though a substantial amount of the site’s current space is fully occupied, its size means there is still a range of space available, from small units which would suit young businesses in their early stages through to new, open-plan offices with woodland views. Some are in refurbished buildings, others in new developments like The Willows.

Laura West said: “Ransom Wood is a genuinely unique location and that’s something you can’t say about so many business parks. The setting really is stunning – rural, quiet and beautifully managed, yet it’s right next to the Mansfield-Ashfield Regeneration Route, a road which links you to both the A1, the A38 and the M1. That puts a massive market on your doorstep.

“It also has some built-in advantages, with an infrastructure that has made it easy to deliver state-of-the-art services and an on-site restaurant where you can take clients and even hold meetings and conferences. In the Cannon family it also has an incredibly committed landlord. Ransom Wood simply wouldn’t be what it is without their vision and their passion for developing a site which is green in every sense of the word but still makes sense as a place to put your business.”

She says that one of the main reasons that businesses have chosen to come to Ransom Wood is the environment and the site’s self-contained convenience: “This is business with nature and that is just not available elsewhere. But it’s also practical – it’s easy to reach, you don’t have problems parking on site and all the facilities are here.”

Charles Cannon, a director of Ransomwood estates, added: “Environment can sometimes be a hard-sell for business, but not here – it comes built-in. We’re committed to meeting high environmental standards and we have a number of long-term ambitions to make the site sustainable – we’re even looking at ways of generating energy on site. We believe the environment is important here in another sense and that is in providing people with a great place to work. This is business, but it’s also business with nature.”