Medical firm to pump £80m into East Yorkshire R&D complex

Smith & Nephew behind plans at business park near HullMedical equipment manufacturing firm Smith & Nephew has put £80m behind a planned research and development and manufacturing facility in East Yorkshire.Subject to planning approval, the firm will build a new facility for its advanced wound management business at Melton West business park, near Hull, where Smith & Nephew has been located for more than a century.The business park, operated by commercial property developer Wykeland Group, is allocated for developments of this kind under the East Riding of Yorkshire Local Plan.Melton West currently hosts a last mile delivery centre for Amazon, a command-and-control facility for Humberside Police and a national distribution centre for Heron Foods.Smith & Nephew is listed on both the London and New York stock exchanges and last year saw sales increase to $5.3bn (£4.2bn) and operating profit rocket 101% to $593m (£475m).