HV Wooding
Having received the largest slice of Expansion East Kent funding
to date, an interest-free loan of £1.1m, HV Wooding is thinking
big.
With international clients including CERN and Rolls Royce, the
precision engineering company is already one of East Kent’s
manufacturing success stories. Now it has plans to both expand its
operation, and bring more business back to East Kent.
“We need to grow to keep pace with our competitors. Expansion
East Kent has enabled us to do that.”
Procurement manager Karl Dodd outlines how Expansion East Kent has
helped HV Wooding achieve its ambition to scale and create new
jobs: “The challenge in today’s market is to grow to compete, and
it’s very difficult to do that without funding. The funding that
we’re getting from Expansion East Kent is helping us to accelerate
that growth, rather than move at a rate that wouldn’t allow us to
keep pace with our competitors.”
With plans to create 16 new jobs over the next year, HV Wooding
is a high-growth East Kent business, exporting world class
manufactures to the world. What’s more, the funding will enable it
to bring more of its production line back to the local area.
“The funding is allowing us to bring more work back to East
Kent and create jobs as the business grows.”
The funding is allowing us to take business back from other
parts of the country to East Kent”, Karl says. “We are buying new
processes in and automating older ones thanks to the extra capacity
the loan is allowing.”
He also offers a word of advice for businesses looking to follow
in HV Wooding’s footsteps and obtain funding to grow.
“You’ve got to try and move forward, Expansion East Kent can
help you develop your business. There’s a lot of help and support
out there; you just need to try and try again.”