Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 9
/NEWS
BUSINESS BITES
ROMAN BOSS IS
BMA PRESIDENT
David Osborne, Managing Director
of Newton Aycliffe based shower
manufacturer and designer, Roman, has
been appointed as the new President
of the trade association, Bathroom
Manufacturers Association (BMA).
The BMA appoints a new President for
a two year term, who is tasked with
promoting the BMA as the main voice of
the bathroom industry.
David Osborne has been very much
involved with the BMA for many years and
his father, Gerry Osborne, who was the
very first president of the BMA and the
founder of Roman in 1985.
AYCLIFFE MANUFACTURERS
ON FIRE WITH GROWTH
Newton Aycliffe-based fireplace
manufacturers, Spirit Fires, are
planning to grow sales by 20%
in the coming year as they enter
USA markets, launch new fires and
thanks to the current marketplace
shift in demand from wood-burning
stoves to efficient gas fires.
Spirit Fires recently spent some time in the
USA visiting exhibitions and carrying out
market research to enable them to establish
distribution channels across America. The
company will be selling its range of ribbon
fires through specially-selected distributors in
the country.
In addition, a range of new UK distribution
channels is being set up to further
strengthen the Spirit Fires network in this
country.
The business’s growth is also being boosted
thanks to a number of new installations
in hotels, bars, restaurants and in private
homes.
Spirit Fires has recently completed projects
for, amongst others, Best Western, Hilton,
Mercure, Greene King, the Bosco Hotel in
Kent, the Westbury Hotel in Cornwall, the
Chester Hotel in Aberdeen and bars and
restaurants in Holland.
In addition, Spirit Fires has designed a
bespoke fire for apartments at Henry Moor
Court in Chelsea, home to a £27 million
apartment, and at the Dryland private
members club in Kensington.
Sales at Spirit Fires will be further boosted
by the launch of several new ranges in the
coming months which feature speciallydesigned new technology. The new fires no
longer require unsightly ‘magic eyes’ in the
front for remote control operation.
All of the technology is now within the fire
and has been developed by Spirit Fires’
David has been the Chairman of the BMA’s
Centre of Excellence Group and Marketing
Committee since 2001 and has a wealth of
experience in the industry from 22 years
with Roman.
UNION’S AYCLIFFE
TRAIN THREAT
A rail union is warning of possible industrial
action over the introduction of new highspeed trains which are set to be built in
Newton Aycliffe.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT)
union has written to the Government
making it clear it will ballot for industrial
action if guards and buffet cars are not
retained on the new Hitachi fleet, which
will be assembled at the Japanese firm’s
£82m factory on Aycliffe Business Park.
engineers, tested to the highest safety levels
and is fully CE-approved.
Since the start of the recession, output at
Spirit Fires headquarters has increased by
around 40% despite the downturn in the
manufacturing sector.
The union said that under the Intercity
Express Programme, signed off by the
Government, the new fleet has the
capacity to run on driver-only operation,
would strip out buffet cars in favour of
more seats and could lead to the current
in-house fleet maintenance being hived-off
to a third party.
The company now employs a team of 15 and
export is continuing to rise with Spirit Fires
showrooms in Munich, Holland, Norway and
Italy where the British-made designs and
quality are in high demand.
The RMT is the main union representing
workers for Canadian-based multi-national
train and plan manufacturer Bombardier,
one of Hitachi’s biggest rivals.
MD of Spirit Fires, Andrew Munro, said:
“We’re in a strong market position to grow
the business by around 20% in the coming
year thanks to rapid worldwide growth. We’re
operating throughout the UK, Europe and
into the Middle East and America is our next
target.
TEKMAR APPOINTMENTS
“We’re now able to start working with
distributors to help break this tough market.
We’ve spent 18 months researching the
USA marketplace and also developing our
new ranges which will all contribute to our
growth.
“In addition, there’s been a shift in demand
from wood-burning stoves back to gas fires
which can offer much higher efficiency for
your money as well as a variety of styles and
are a much cleaner option.
”
www.spiritfires.co.uk
Newton Aycliffe-based offshore cable
protection specialists Tekmar Energy has
reinforced its senior management team
with the appointments of a non-executive
technical director and a technical sales
manager.
Dr Terry Sheldrake and Charlie Sullivan
have taken up the respective roles which
further underpin Tekmar’s engineering-led
technical expertise.