Electronics firm hopes for new factory
9:17am Tuesday 20th May 2008
A planning application has been submitted to build a new factory for a historic Worcester company.
Coombers Electronic Equipment has lodged the application with Worcester City Council for a site in Brindley Road, Warndon.
The company is leaving Croft Road to make way for the city's new £50 million super library.
The planned factory will be bigger than the current one, where Coombers has been operating for 30 years, and it is hoped it will aid the company's expansion.
Warndon parish councillor Ted Holloway said: "I welcome industry into the parish and support any considered moves towards creating full employment in the Worcester area."
As previously reported in your Worcester News, the city council had sought a compulsory purchase order to make the firm leave its Croft Road home so that green space could be provided around the new library and history centre - a joint project between the county council and the University of Worcester.
However, the council later abandoned the CPO fearing the process would take too long and Worcestershire County Council has now agreed to buy the land from Coombers for an undisclosed fee.
The new site - 1.19 hectares (three acres) - is the last space in the Shire Business Park to be developed and Coombers is keen to keep the natural habitat intact as much as possible Plans include a two-storey industrial unit which will house workshops and staff facilities on the ground floor and offices on a mezzanine floor. The plans include a rainwater harvesting system, a 69-space car park and showers for staff.
Forty people are employed by the 100-year-old company, which sells specialist educational equipment to schools around the world, and it is hoped the move will create more jobs.
Coombers declined to comment.