Schools firm secures new business worth more than £0.5m

A WORCESTERSHIRE technology firm specialising in the supply of equipment to schools has secured new business worth more than £0.5m.

HME Technology, based at Saxon Park in Bromsgrove, supplies and installs technology and science equipment such as forges, brazing hearths, furnaces, welding tables, fume extraction systems, kilns, wood dust extraction systems, metal finishing and CNC machines.

It also supplies fume cupboards and ventilation systems for science departments. It manufactures some of the equipment itself and buys in others from leading brands.

Its new business wins are from customers in the Middle East and the UK.

The first contract, from ALDAR Properties in Abu Dhabi, is worth £230,000 and is to help equip a new school.

Closer to home, the firm is also working with Sangwin Educational Furniture and construction group Willmott Dixon on the Hope Academy scheme in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, which is due for completion later this year.

It has also won a £288,000 flagship contract to supply and install design and technology equipment for the new £35m Landau Forte Academy in Tamworth.

The academy opened last year in existing buildings at the former Woodhouse Business and Enterprise College but will move to new purpose built accommodation next month.
 
Martyn Hale, director of the business, said: “It remains a difficult economic climate in the UK yet our hard work is paying off. And our efforts to target markets abroad have also produced some significant results.

“We were particularly pleased to have won the (academy) contract because this was established to bring together the worlds of business, industry and education in a uniquely productive partnership to secure the highest quality education.

“Given our interest in all three sectors and our own manufacturing expertise it was a particularly apposite win.”

Mr Hale said the firm remained busy and had a number of additional contracts in the pipeline.