Gwynedd Council has welcomed the news that Snowdonia Aerospace Centre, Llanbedr, is to receive £500,000 from the UK Space Agency’s Horizontal Spaceport Development Fund.

The announcement was made at Tuesday’s session of the UK Space Conference in Newport.

The funding will enable a group of space services companies, working as a consortium, to research their multi-million-pound spaceport vision for the site and build a supporting business case.

The proposed facilities would include world-class training facilities for astronauts and the aero-medical sector, satellite development and launch, and a visitor centre and planetarium together with supporting hotel.

It was also announced that the site will receive funding towards a specific project to investigate using satellite-enabled drones to deliver healthcare in rural communities. The project, in association with the Welsh Ambulance Service, will look at the emergency delivery of defibrillators using drones.

Lee Paul, CEO of Snowdonia Aerospace, said: “We have been working hard for many years to develop the site as a centre of excellence for emerging future flight technologies including space related activities, and today’s announcements support our vision both for short and longer-term operations.”

These projects will build existing investment, which has been part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government, to improve the quality of business accommodation on-site, along with improving access to the facility.

See this week’s north papers for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition now