The last piece of a 40-year project to reuse buildings left derelict after a dockyard closed has been completed.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer officially opened the Fitted Rigging House South at The Historic Dockyard Chatham today.

The building, which was seen as the “most significant underutilised building” at the historic site can now be used as commercial space to benefit the local economy and create jobs in the area after it was refurbished with funding from the government’s Levelling Up Fund.

Speaking at the opening, Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst said: “We are celebrating today as this is one of the final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle for Chatham Dockyard to become sustainable financially for the future.

“This is the coming to the end of a 40-year project to protect this significant historic site within the Medway Towns.”

She added: “The plus side is that by utilising the Levelling Up Fund and bringing our other partners together in order to bring the funding in we have been able to protect this beautiful building while helping local businesses.”

The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust was awarded £2.2m from the government’s Levelling Up Fund (LUF) in November 2021 to support the works required to bring the final third of Fitted Rigging House, a Grade-I listed Scheduled Ancient Monument, back into effective use.

The project has transformed the derelict space into c.1,900 sqm of commercial floorspace, benefiting the local economy and creating high-value jobs.

Up to 85% of the commercial space in the Fitted Rigging House (South) has been pre-let with the first tenants – Age UK, Ward Security and Siemens – due to move in this month.

The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP said: “We are here to celebrate the opening of The Fitted Rigging House (South) which has had significant government investment over the years from my department and the levelling up fund.

“We are here to celebrate this huge area which will bring together heritage, community and commercial space and to look at the fabulous work that has been going on here over the years.”

Admiral Sir Trevor Soar KBC OBE DL, who is chairman of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust, said: “We were delighted that The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP was able to join us to formally open The Fitted Rigging House (South).

“We champion a long-standing strategy of ‘preservation through re-use’ allowing us to bring historic buildings back into effective everyday use.

“The completion of this project sees one of our final underutilised buildings brought into sustainable re-use, extending the creative business cluster that is thriving within the Historic Dockyard estate, creating jobs and delivering significant economic benefit to the Medway region. The project would not have been possible without the generous support from the government’s Levelling Up Fund.”

The working Dockyard closed in 1984 and over the past four decades the Trust has cultivated a community of cultural enterprises within its commercial estate and grown an industry-leading film location business used regularly by international productions, including Call The Midwife and Mission Impossible.

Completion of the Fitted Rigging House project further reinforces the Historic Dockyard’s position as a creative industries hub, supporting the delivery of the trust’s charitable purpose of preservation and learning and contributing to the economic benefit driven by Medway’s flourishing creative sector.