Case Study:

PRP Optoelectronics

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We spoke to Kevin Peart, Managing Director of PRP Optoelectronics to find out more about their relocation to Swindon

 

What made you decide to locate in the region?

“In 2013, we needed to find a new operations base very quickly – within 6 months. We decided on Swindon & Wiltshire as the council was the most cooperative and could act at a pace that others who we approached could not. With their help, we had a very quick turnaround on building planning permission and were even able to use a local job centre for our recruitment processes, for free.”

 

Tell us about your workforce.

“We need everything from PHDs to general office & production staff in our workforce. A big advantage of Swindon is that it has always had a strong electronics sector and these sorts of skills are very relevant to us. Nearly 90% of our employees are local, and we work with Swindon college to support engineering apprenticeships.”

 

Where are you based?

“PRP is based at Hillmead Enterprise Park, where LEDs go through various production processes to become the final products. We were offered a number of sites by Swindon & Wiltshire based on our requirements and now enjoy being located on a park that has a number of similar tech-based businesses. In December we signed up for the building next door to ours in order to double our floor space – we don’t currently have any need to move.”

 

What other assistance and support have you received?

“In addition to Swindon & Wiltshire helping us find the building and allowing us to use the jobcentre, we were awarded a £1.1m loan from the Swindon & Wiltshire LEP to help with our expansion into other LED applications.

Swindon & Wiltshire have been very supportive of our continued growth and expansion, and have helped to get our name out there.”

 

How has the business grown since you came to Swindon and Wiltshire?

“Since we moved here in 2014, we have doubled our floor space and have increased from around 18 people to 38 now. We forecast that we will grow to c.49 people in the next year or so.

In the last 5 years we have expanded our core LED offering and taken our new developments in optoelectronic technology into different markets. In particular we have been working on producing LED systems that kill bacteria and viruses to purify water, which we intend to accelerate post-covid.”

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