The 78,000 sq ft offices and factory development is the biggest and, more importantly, the most complex ever handled in the 17-year history of the fast-growing Severfield-Reeve Projects, a subsidiary of Severfield-Rowen Plc.

It was an innovative "win-win" deal - a "no-cash" property-swap, in which Dowding & Mills gains the huge new factory in exchange for its Melrose Works site. That has been sold by Severfield-Reeve Projects to Wainhomes (Yorkshire) Ltd which has gained permission to build more than 250 homes in 11 apartment blocks on the six-acre site.

Wilson Connelly Holdings, into which Wainhomes was merged last May, has since been in discussions with the City of York planners to activate the plans.

Meanwhile Severfield-Reeve has assumed full responsibility for all aspects of the Clifton Moor project for Dowding & Mills including supplying the site, conceiving and designing the new facility, all legal work, handling planning permission for both sites and constructing the new factory and offices.

The design and build organisation will also take on the burden of moving all the engineering firm's existing machines and equipment without disrupting production.

The project is on schedule for the factory to become fully operational by mid-April.

Lindsay Ross, managing director of Severfield-Reeve Projects, said: "Preparation work for this project has been vast and comprehensive. Construction is progressing as smoothly as we would wish. The key to the success of the project lies in our integrated approach to design and build and also, for this project, the total financing."

Updated: 11:41 Tuesday, January 22, 2002