Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond has submitted plans to build a new state-of-the-art carbon fiber production facility in Grimsby, UK, creating up to 400 jobs.
The facility will consist of a 143,000 sq ft manufacturing building and two-story offices, featuring yellow details in a nod to the Tour de France maillot jaune (yellow jersey).
Planning consultants DWD worked on behalf of LeMond Carbon UK during the application process and noted that up until now the UK has been “entirely dependent upon imported carbon fiber”, a material that while also used for bicycle frames and components, is also manufactured for other engineering sectors, such as in the construction of wind turbine blades.
DWD explained: “The UK Government has recognized the need for indigenous supply and has supported LeMond to set up a new facility at Energy Park Way, Grimsby. DWD was instructed in 2024, tasked with obtaining planning permission, which was achieved in January 2025.”
A few years ago LeMond partnered with Deakin University in Australia on the development of production technology that is said to reduce the cost of production by “30%” and carbon emissions by “50 %”
In 2020, LeMond Carbon completed a successful test of its carbon manufacturing process by independent technical auditors Bureau Veritas (BV).
At the time, LeMond said: “This is a significant milestone for our company. Having our technology independently verified by BV validates the revolutionary nature of our technology. My team and I are excited to bring our high-performance low-cost carbon fiber to the global market and look forward to expanding into new markets where the current high cost of carbon fiber has been a significant barrier to adoption.”
This led to LeMond opening a carbon fiber production facility in Tennessee in 2020, with the goal of creating lower-cost carbon fiber that would appeal to the aerospace and military industries, as well as other sectors that use the material.
“It’s kind of a little bit of luck, we were trying to make carbon fiber in Oakridge [Tennessee] to get carbon fiber to our customers, and Dekerk [Buckmaster, director of Carbon Nexus at Deakin University] said “we’ve created something that could change the whole industry’,” LeMond said.
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