NEWS > Entrepreneurial spirit drives engineering success in Stoke
Published: Friday, 21 Jan, 2011
Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, officially opened a new multi million pound headquarters on 14 January 2011 for a North Staffordshire engineering firm which supplies some of the leading blue chip companies in the country. Olympus Engineering has relocated to a prime site next to the A500 in Stoke-on-Trent which serves as a showcase for manufacturing in the city and has helped regenerate part of an area that had lain derelict for years.
Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, officially opened a new multi million pound headquarters on 14 January 2011 for a North Staffordshire engineering firm which supplies some of the leading blue chip companies in the country. Olympus Engineering has relocated to a prime site next to the A500 in Stoke-on-Trent which serves as a showcase for manufacturing in the city and has helped regenerate part of an area that had lain derelict for years.
Lord Jones, who served as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry for more than six years, unveiled a plaque to mark the company’s GBP8 million relocation from College Road, Hanley to Garner Street, Etruria, which was secured with the help of funding from regional development agency Advantage West Midlands. He said: “There is a mood that prevails in this country that we don’t make things anymore which is a complete misconception. Companies like Olympus Engineering are living proof that the UK does make things and it’s firms like this which are pivotal to the country’s future success. If this nation is going to succeed it has got to manufacture its way out of economic difficulties. That means exporting and that means manufacturing and engineering. As a country we are only going to succeed by making things and it’s small to medium engineering companies like Olympus Engineering who will help generate the wealth for the UK and create jobs for the future.”
Like most manufacturing companies, Olympus Engineering was badly hit by the recession with the workforce shrinking by half to around 60 people at a time when the relocation was in full swing. But the company has bounced back from the downturn and employment levels have returned to pre-recession levels - with the promise of more jobs to come in 2011.
Advantage West Midlands was instrumental in securing Olympus Engineering’s presence in the area, providing government grant assistance of GBP1.36 million to remediate the Garner Street site and two business support grants totalling nearly GBP900,000 to help the company invest in machinery and equipment. Neil Blood, Managing Director of Olympus Engineering, who founded the company in 2000, said: “As a company we are living proof that you should always invest in a downturn to take advantage of the upturn when it arrives.”
The new 6,500m² 7620 sq metre (82,000 sq ft) facility is on a brownfield site and houses CNC production facilities making precision machined components for prestige customers like Bentley and JCB. The new premises also include a rapid prototypying centre and facilities for machining components up to 2.5 tonnes in weight and two metres long.
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