About SOG Limited.
SOG Ltd was formed in 2000 from Site Operations Group – a division of the ICI chemical group, which managed the company’s Runcorn headquarters at The Heath and other ICI scientific sites across northern England.
When ICI announced its intention to close The Heath, managers working within the SOG division formed a limited company and linked up with a Liverpool-based businessman to develop a business plan to purchase the 50 acre site from ICI.
In 2000, SOG became the owner and manager of The Heath and transformed it from a single-occupancy site with an uncertain future into a thriving centre for some of the country’s most innovative businesses. Remarkably the entire process has been achieved without any public-sector grant funding.
As well as creating jobs, SOG has successfully retained an important skills base within the North West, with much of the highly specialised expertise associated with ICI – such as scientific glassblowing and experimental work with blast-proof laboratories – now available to the wider business community.
Today more than 185 different organisations, ranging from bio-science firms and IT specialists to government agencies and telemarketing specialists, lease serviced office and laboratory accommodation at The Heath. The total workforce employed on the site is now over 1,700 people – more than in ICI’s heyday – and the business park has been expanded to cover 60 acres.
This regeneration success story has won praise and endorsement from many high ranking supporters, including the Prime Minister.
During a tour of The Heath site in 2006, Tony Blair said: “This is the type of project that in different parts of the country needs to be replicated… to come here today, to see it as a thriving business park with so many different businesses involved and people with the prospect of a good future is tremendously heartening.”
Today SOG is putting its facilities management expertise to broader use. Within months of the Prime Minister’s comments, SOG started to export its winning formula. The company was invited to take over the facilities management of another leading science complex – the 11 storey Hexagon Tower at Blackley, Manchester, which serves as global headquarters of speciality chemicals company Avecia. And the Fusion project has been created so that other business sites can benefit from SOG’s management expertise.
