HISTORIC bridge and girder building company Mabey Bridge, which first set down its roots below Brunel's bridge in Chepstow in the 1850's, has announced plans to shift "down the road" to nearby Newhouse Industrial Estate.

The proposed move of the steel fabrication and coating plant which employs more than 200 workers behind the town's railway station, has long been rumoured to be on the cards.

Earlier this year Mabey was given permission to build wind turbine towers on the Newhouse Farm Distribution Park on the outskirts of Chepstow, investing £13m and bringing 240 new jobs to the area.

Managing Director, Peter Lloyd, told the Review, engineers were asked to assess the possibility of merging the two operations, with towers, bridges and girders all being built on the same site.

"We asked them to look at what space was available and would it give us the potential for making girders and bridges. They came back and said it was feasible."

Mr Lloyd says further extensions to the Newhouse site would be necessary, including plans in the pipeline for a paintshop. He said there would be potential for engineers to work across both manufacturing streams – towers and girders – given demand, and that, subject to planning permissions, the phased move could begin in 2011.

"We aim to submit a planning application later this summer," said Mr Lloyd. "Obviously it will be subject to conditions and there is a significant cost involved, but if it is successful we would start the move in 2011, although it will take some time because there is physically a lot of equipment to be moved, so everything needs to be phased over very carefully."

Mr Lloyd said the plans will have no impact on workers at Mabey's Harbour Road plant in Lydney which constructs box girder bridges. He also said that Brunel House in Chepstow will be retained, with more marketing and sales staff moving in from Reading, making it effectively the company's administrative headquarters.

Moving girders out of Chepstow's congested road network has long plagued both the company and town and the move could ease problems, But Mr Lloyd accepted future development of the Mabey site for housing will face similar hurdles – how to to get hundreds of new commuters in and out.

"In the extreme it may not be possible to develop this site because there simply may not be the infrastructure to do it."

He suggested solving the projected traffic problems facing Chepstow, given thousands of proposed new houses in Lydney, may be beyond local authorities and need to go higher to national government.