A specialist lighting company from Herefordshire has transformed its production process and expanded its workforce thanks to support from the Marches Growth Hub.

Hector Finch Lighting Ltd received a £30,000 Business Growth Programme grant to help owners Hector and Emma Finch expand into new premises in Leominster. As a result of the move, the business has brought its manufacturing processes in-house and created up to eight new jobs.

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Hector Finch Lighting designs and manufactures light fittings, about 80 per cent of which are exported to American interior designers working in high-end properties. The business also fulfils some commercial contracts with quality hotels and restaurants, and was supported by the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership’s business support service, the Marches Growth Hub, delivered in Herefordshire by the LEP’s partners, Herefordshire Council.

Emma said: “The grant supported the purchase of kit-out costs in our new home at Easters Court as well as creating a new loading bay and bringing the production in-house.

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“The Marches Growth Hub was hugely helpful in supporting us ... the whole experience has been extremely positive for us.

“Our ability to grow since we have been at Easters Court has helped to deliver 50 per cent growth in the last two years. We would never have managed that in our old premises because we just physically didn’t have the space, either for the stock or the production, the boxes or the staff.”

Hector added: “With the new investment we have tried to make it much more of a full manufacturing process. What we buy in is the basic raw material, and we manufacture most of our components here on-site. The lights are then metal-finished and wired in-house. This is a big change on where we were a short time ago, when a lot of all the components, and the finishing and any painting, were all outsourced.”

Amongst the new employees are skilled local engineers who had previously been made redundant.

Part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Birmingham City Council, the Business Growth Programme offers grants of £2,500 to £1,000,000 and is designed to strengthen supply chains, stimulate innovation and help businesses grow. The programme is available to both start-ups and existing B2B SMEs in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.