ESSS

FJZ

RAL/CCLRC

S/S-A

YESS

Website: http://www.yorkshire-ess.org.uk

Yorkshire Forward, the regional developing agency for Yorkshire and Humber, and the White Rose University Consortium, which comprises the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, had prepared the Yorkshire site proposal jointly. The White Rose University Consortium spends annually over 290 million euros on research.

The White Rose University Consortium in collaboration with Yorkshire Forward proposed a site by Selby at Burn Airfield between the cities of Leeds and York in the region of North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. The site fulfilled all the stringent geological, traffic-infrastructural, technical, and scientific criteria demanded by ESS Council.

The site is at the heart of the UK’s transportation network. The Yorkshire and Humber region has some of the fastest transportation links in the UK, with three international airports (Leeds, Sheffield and Hull) providing access to more than 40 countries, the UK’s largest ports complex and over 600 miles of motorway. It is also the heart of a County, which boasts the most varied, dramatic, and beautiful scenery, and the most interesting history.

Most importantly, the Yorkshire-ESS site is at the heart of a region, which has an academic and industrial research base of unequalled breath and depth. Within a 100 km radius there are 17 universities, employing 3530 university researchers in all fields of science and technology directly relevant to the exploitation of ESS. 2200 of those are based in 74 research departments that were graduated 5 and 5* (i.e. internationally leading and internationally outstanding) in a recent national overview.

Similarly the region is industrially strong and vibrant in both the traditional areas of metals, engineering, textiles, fishing and agriculture. Additionally the new growth sectors include automotive components, medical equipment, electronics, food and telecommunications.

Scientists, technologists and industrialists within England’s largest county, Yorkshire, have long harnessed the tremendous power of neutron scattering to study the detailed and complex behaviour of material world. Indeed, George Bacon, now Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield, carried the very first neutron diffraction experiments outside the United States out half a century ago.

Yorkshire’s neutron scattering community is therefore extremely aware of the significance of the ESS Project, and its potential to extend greatly the limits of what is now possible in the study of arrangements and motion of atoms in materials of key physical, chemical, biological and technological importance.

Yorkshire has a clear realization of the enormous scientific, technological and economic benefits that major a facility such as the ESS can bring to Europe in general and to the host region in particular. Consequently, Yorkshire’s world leading neutron scientists have joined in close collaboration with the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, and the White Rose Consortium of the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York to prepare an undeniably strong and attractive bid to secure the ESS for the region. This powerful collaboration is appropriately and positively named by The Yorkshire-ESS (YESS) Project.

Statement by the Yorkshire-ESS Consortium:

“In Yorkshire, therefore we have much more than the geographically ideal site for the ESS, we also have the breath and the depth of scientific and technological expertise necessary to help build and support this major facility, and the industrial base both to supply and to use the ESS. Once ESS is operational, Yorkshire will provide a rich and stimulating scientific, social and geographical environment that will be unrivalled not only in Europe, but also in the World.”