BUILDING work is underway at Jodrell Bank to expand the central office for the world’s largest radio telescope.

Plans were approved last autumn for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) global headquarters, which will eventually be home to more than 135 staff from more than a dozen countries.

The staff will manage SKA telescopes in southern Africa and western Australia – some several times sensitive and hundreds of times faster at mapping the sky than facilities currently available.

With support from Cheshire East Council and the University of Manchester, which owns the Jodrell Bank site, the new building will include 18 meeting rooms to work with teams spread over 20 time zones, as well as a council chamber and auditorium for talks and conferences.

Cllr David Brown, CEC deputy leader, said: “To have this amazing, international, ground-breaking research centre headquartered here in east Cheshire is a historic moment and we congratulate the University and the team at Jodrell Bank for proposing to host this prestigious project.”

“Hosting the SKA global headquarters is a big coup for CEC, and will no doubt benefit this area hugely in terms of jobs, kudos and economic growth. It falls squarely within the Cheshire Science Corridor and Northern Powerhouse concepts, and this is why we are deeply committed to it.”

The 4,200sq m headquarters is due to open in June 2018, funded by £9.8 million of Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy money, £5.7 million from the UoM, and £1 million from CEC.

The new building will be on the Jodrell Bank site, home to the iconic Lovell Telescope and the UK’s e-MERLIN telescope array which is part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the UoM.

The Observatory was established in 1945 by Sir Bernard Lovell and has since played an important role in a number of fields of study, as well as being heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age.

As such, Jodrell Bank has been a leader in radio astronomy for over 70 years and is now on the UK shortlist for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Its accompanying Discovery Centre currently attracts around 165,000 visitors each year, including 22,000 school pupils on educational visits.

Prof Colin Bailey, deputy president and vice-chancellor of the UoM, said: “The UoM is incredibly proud to have the SKA headquarters on the Jodrell Bank site.

“It complements the world-class research already taking place at Jodrell Bank and, more than 70 years after Sir Bernard Lovell founded the Observatory, this ground-breaking ceremony shows that the site is still at the forefront of expanding our understanding of the Universe.”