Great British Railways in Derby: What we still don’t know

The idea of Rail Campus Derby is to co-locate businesses in the orbit of the new headquarters to encourage innovation and investment.

But we’re not sure exactly what this will look like.

A rail insider told the BBC it may not necessarily reflect a “campus” in the traditional sense. Whether or not businesses actually end up operating within a campus will depend on the scope allowed for this by the location of the headquarters.

The authority is still asking businesses for ideas as to how all this might actually look. It’s likely that any sense of a “campus” will be built up over several years -perhaps in the manner of the Treasury’s Darlington campus.

But we do know that the idea has been received positively by businesses which are keen to build on the existing presence of the rail industry in Derby, which currently supports about 11,000 jobs.

Council leader Nadine Peatfield says the campus is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”.

“One that will create more training and jobs for local people, and bring huge opportunities for further regeneration,” she added.

There has been no word yet, though, on how many more jobs will be generated by the campus and GBR more broadly.