From supercars to buses - Millbrook's 50 years of testing the nation's vehicles

Famous motoring proving ground Millbrook is celebrating 50 years of testing some of the nation’s best-loved vehicles.

Everything from the most exotic supercars to reliable family estates and rugged 4x4s have been put through their paces at the facility just a few miles south of Bedford.

It may be inconspicuously nestled in the picturesque Bedfordshire countryside, but Millbrook is one of the foremost sites in the world when it comes to checking the performance and safety of cars before they go on sale to the public.

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Millbrook was opened in 1970 by General Motors as a dedicated testing and development facility for the vehicle manufacturers, Bedford and Vauxhall. Millbrook takes its name from the nearby village, where, in the early nineteenth century, a flourishing community of mills was located around an idyllic brook.

Favoured for having both naturally flat and hilly sections, the proving ground took two years to construct, with work commencing in April 1968. It involved moving nearly two million cubic metres of earth and laying more than 100,000 cubic metres of aggregate, hardcore, sand and cement.

For the first 18 years of Millbrook’s life it was used for the exclusive testing of Vauxhall cars and Bedford trucks, buses and military vehicles. Since the early 1990s, however, it has played host to vehicle testing on some of the nation’s best-loved cars, as well regularly featuring in film and television productions, such as Casino Royale and Top Gear.

Millbrook became independent of General Motors in 2013 and began to expand in 2015 when it acquired world-leading winter vehicle and tyre testing facility, Test World, in northern Finland.

In 2017, it acquired Lancashire-based Leyland Technical Centre to broaden its test capabilities in the UK. This was followed by the acquisition of Detroit-based Revolutionary Engineering in 2018 and the opening of a new Millbrook Revolutionary Engineering site in California in 2019.

In 2019, Millbrook became home to the UK’s first 5G network for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and opened the Autonomous Village to enable the development of driverless vehicles onsite.

During its 50 years as a local employer, Millbrook has invested in its staff. It has strong links with local schools and universities and runs successful training schemes for apprentices, undergraduates and graduates.

It has a loyal workforce of 500 staff at the proving ground, many of whom joined the business on one of these training schemes.

The longest-serving members of staff have been with Millbrook for more than 40 years, providing great continuity through the changes over the last decades. This investment in training and professional development for the company’s workforce has enabled Millbrook to remain a highly regarded employer within the local area.

Despite having to postpone its planned full-scale celebrations this year, the company has celebrated its golden anniversary with the launch of a brand-new website and by encouraging staff past and present to share their most cherished memories of Millbrook.

Rod Calvert OBE, for instance, was an engineer at Millbrook from the day it opened, before being made managing director in 1985.

Rod, like so many Millbrook employees, has incredibly fond memories of a career spent at the Bedford Proving Ground. He said: “I always say I’m like a stick of rock – cut me in two and it says Millbrook in the middle! There was a family spirit about the place. We focused on cooperation, friendliness and belief in one another.”

This spirit of togetherness and support is evident in the modern-day Millbrook’s policies towards staff health and wellbeing. Given that one in four adults in the UK is diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives, Millbrook runs initiatives aimed at dealing with this common issue.

Employees at the Bedfordshire site have access to dedicated counselling sessions, and in partnership with mental health charity, Mates in Mind. Millbrook nominates and trains dedicated mental health first aiders to enable a proactive mental health strategy across the business.

The company also runs regular financial wellbeing sessions and an employee assistance programme, which supports Millbrook staff 24/7.

Millbrook is committed to its staff’s wellbeing and to serving its local communities. During the COVID-19 crisis volunteers from Millbrook were on-hand to assist Bedford Foodbank in transporting large consignments of food and essentials from depots to the food bank’s distribution hubs.

While the 50th anniversary celebrations quite rightly involve much nostalgia and a casting of minds back to Millbrook’s past, the Bedfordshire-based business has no desire to rest on its laurels.

Alex Burns, President of Millbrook, said: “I am delighted to be leading Millbrook into its second half-century of supporting the development of new vehicles.

“This anniversary is a great opportunity to reflect on the extraordinary pace of development of automotive technologies and to recognise the investment that the industry is making to promote cleaner and safer transport in the future.

“We will continue to invest in our most valuable asset – our incredible staff, providing great opportunities for professional development and offering them challenging and rewarding careers working at the forefront of technology.”

10 facts you (probably) didn’t know about Millbrook

* It takes two weeks of continuous mowing to cut all of the grass at Millbrook’s UK Proving Ground.

* Millbrook’s iconic high-speed circuit can accommodate 3,791 parked cars.

* Millbrook has its very own ice hockey team, based in Detroit.

* Sir Ranulph Fiennes tested equipment at -55 degrees centigrade in Millbrook’s climatic chamber before an expedition to Antarctica in 2013.

* A Guinness World Record for the largest spin class was set in Millbrook’s Concept 1 building in 2007.

* Millbrook’s engineering team tested the Queen’s Jubilee vehicle in February 2002.

* 202 National British Land Speed Records have been broken at Millbrook.

* Films and TV programmes, including Casino Royale, Johnny English and Top Gear, have been filmed at Millbrook.

* Every year, Millbrook hosts the MAD 5K Challenge, a grueling, multi-terrain endurance event in support of Help for Heroes. The fastest time recorded currently stands at 21 minutes and 24 seconds!

* Millbrook has its own classic car club. The 91 members own over 200 classic cars between them.

For more information about Millbrook click here.