Celebrity interior designer Linda Barker officially launched Elstead Lighting’s new showroom in Alton, Hampshire this month, marking the culmination of three years of work and investment for the company.
The new showroom is a key part of a £2m investment programme into Elstead’s business, and presents almost the entire lighting range offered by the company. As well as the 9000 sqft showroom, the company has invested in adding more four young trainees/apprentices to its team, along with additional manufacturing capability at its Alton facility.
Elstead also recently established a 20,000 sqft European headquarters in Krakow, Poland, which employs 10 staff to help facilitate the company’s expanding export sales.
"It is an exciting time to be in this business right now. As a team of people we have all worked enormously hard, often against the tide, and we can now see many growing signs of opportunity ahead, which is reassuring for us all after what has been a truly challenging past four years"
All of this infrastructure development will help Elstead realise its business plan of tripling its business over the next five years. The manufacturing undertaken in Alton, where 60 staff are currently employed, continues to expand – this number is expected to grow to 85 shortly.
Elstead Lighting now sells in more than 25 countries, and exports are expected to become a major activity of the company.
"It is an exciting time to be in this business right now’’ says MD Jonathan Lucas. ‘’As a team of people we have all worked enormously hard, often against the tide, and we can now see many growing signs of opportunity ahead, which is reassuring for us all after what has been a truly challenging past four years.
“It is especially exciting to see products, hand-made in Alton, appearing in showrooms as far and wide as Japan, India, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Russia and Kenya, to name but a few parts of the world we are being recognised in. All of the recent investments are the culmination and belief many of us have in British manufacturing and, thanks to the support of both local and national business support mechanisms, we see a strong future ahead.’’
