Former Remploy workers in the Rhondda are to move from their Porth factory to a larger industrial unit in nearby Tonypandy.
The E-Cycle company, which was formed recently by ex-Remploy managers Richard Harding and Tony Protheroe, has taken a five year lease on the 61,534 square feet Unit 4 Dinas Isaf Industrial Estate at an annual rental rising to £120,000 in later years.
Remploy is a leading UK provider of specialist employment services for disabled people but the funding it receives from the Government‘s has been cut. As a result of the planned closure of the Remploy South Wales operation, E-Cycle was formed to acquire and continue the Remploy IT Asset Management business.
Of the 37 Remploy personnel employed in South Wales, 30 have transferred to the new E-Cycle – 29 of whom are disabled.
Richard Harding, operations director of E-Cycle, said: “We will continue to provide an IT asset management service, taking clients’ IT and communications equipment when they no longer need it, erasing the data to high standards to maintain security, and then either refurbishing and reselling it or recycling the components in an environmentally-aware manner.
“The new industrial unit at Dinas Isaf is larger, more modern and has higher ceilings for better storage than the factory at Porth. It’s a really good move for us and we plan to be up and running in the new base by mid-December.”
Neil Francis, industrial associate at property consultants Knight Frank in Cardiff, advised Dinas Isaf Industrial Estate landlord M7 Real Estate on the deal. He said: “This deal represents the biggest single letting M7 has done since it acquired 45 separate ownerships, from single let investments to multi let estates, in Summer last year.”
Joint agent Anthony Jenkins of Jenkins Best added: “The original Unit was constructed by the Welsh Development Agency in the late 1980s, and was subsequently extended in 1996 and 1998 to provide additional warehousing facilities.”
M7 Real Estate now owns approximately 1.2 million sq ft over 400 properties in the Principality.
Many Remploy clients have transferred to E-Cycle, including UK Government departments, local councils, the Welsh Assembly, Xerox, Hewlett Packard and Severn Trent.