Cheshire based VME Ltd has recently completed a move to larger premises. Previously based in Alderley Edge, VME occupied a selection of different units in Laburnam Park, a small industrial estate attached to a farm. The move has taken the company a few miles down the road to Parkgate Industrial Estate which is approximately one mile to the east of Knutsford town centre. The new unit effectively doubles the available area from 3,000 to 6,000 square feet.
Quite simply, a lack of space is the obvious motivation for the relocation. Office Manager, Tani Davie states the main reasons for moving as “expanding the sales operation and also our hire stock.” She also cites several other advantages to the move. “We will not only be gaining extra space but also will improve working conditions for all of us, and enable jobs to be prepared much more efficiently. We have been based at the Laburnam Park site for over ten years and have outgrown the available space. Also, our operation was split between four different buildings; the new unit enables us to have everything under one roof.”
The new unit will provide the increased storage space for VME’s ever expanding portfolio of hire stock but will also allow the crucial preparation space that was lacking in the old site, and better office space. Soon to be included in the new facility is a demonstration suite where customers can come and see, hear and test a range of VME’s sales products, an area that they are keen to expand upon. Currently, VME is the UK distributor for Kling and Freitag loudspeakers and Apex AV. The company are also sub-distributors for Allen & Heath, Sennheiser and Yamaha.
One further advantage to the move is the improved location. The Knutsford site is only 3 miles from junction 19 of the M6. Anyone who visited the old site in Alderley Edge will certainly remember the rather rough (and quite narrow) access road leading to the company’s base on the Laburnam Park site! With Parkgate being a larger industrial estate, this inevitably makes access, for large vehicles in particular, an awful lot easier.
Visiting VME at the old unit whilst the company were in the middle of moving was interesting. Director, Dion Davie told me, “We have moved a fair bit of gear there already and already it is starting to look full!” When asked about whether the move to Knutsford was temporary or long term, Davie stated, “There is no real room for expansion on the Parkgate site, ideally we want to move to a still larger unit, ideally still in this area, of around 10,000 square feet which has been customised to our requirements.”
