Steelwork starts on vast Sheffield machining hall

Steelwork assembly has started on a landmark Sheffield building which will become one of the world’s most advanced, large-scale, machining facilities.

McLaughlin & Harvey has kicked off the New Year at Ministry of Defence-owned Sheffield Forgemasters by putting up the first steel frames for its New Machine Shop on Weedon Street, which will be clearly visible from the M1 motorway at Meadowhall, with a span of 30,000 m2, and a height of 32 metres.

The building’s steel framework is due for completion in June, with gantry cranes for the facility fitted by October and the roof and cladding to follow later in the year, in order to house 24 new machines including some of the world’s largest, most advanced, Vertical Turning Lathes.

Gareth Barker, Chief Operating Officer at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “Following the award of our Main Works contract for the New Machine Shop to McLaughlin & Harvey, enabling works and piling progress mean that we can start 2026 with steel assembly.

“The Weedon Street location is the former site of Cammell Laird’s Brightside Steel Works, once part of the Vickers empire which Sheffield Forgemasters inherited in 1983, so it is great to know that we are reinstating world-leading manufacturing facilities in the country’s steel heartland.

“This will really allow people to visualise the scale of the construction and to see industrial engineering reshaping the eastern side of Sheffield once again.”

The New Machine Shop is a key feature of Sheffield Forgemasters’ £1.3 billion recapitalisation programme, and will complement its new 13,000 tonne Forge, currently under construction on the opposite side of Brightside Lane, to underpin UK defence manufacture.

Jonathan Cole, Operations Director at McLaughlin & Harvey, said: “As we start 2026, we are delighted to drive forward with the steelwork assembly for one of the UK’s most important defence-related construction projects and to support Sheffield Forgemasters in its highly ambitious plans.

“Following an intensive period of enabling works and advanced works, we are able to progress the structural steel assembly, which will bring the full scale of this project to life”.

Sheffield Forgemasters’ 13,000 tonne forging line and machine shop will create a new generation of engineers and designers trained to work with Industry 4.0 technologies in nuclear-grade engineering projects.

The machine shop project team consists of Arup, which handled the ecological and travel assessments, Bond Bryan Architects, and JLL, which acted on behalf of Sheffield Forgemasters for the site acquisition and planning submissions, and delivery support partner, Turner & Townsend.