Luxury goods brand Mulberry has appointed the head designer of French ready-to-wear fashion house Céline as its new creative director. Johnny Coca will join Mulberry, best known for its leather bags, next July from Paris-based Céline, where he is currently head design director for leather goods, shoes, hard accessories, jewellery and sunglasses. As Mulberry’s...
Chancellor George Osborne has been asked to play Santa in next week’s Autumn Statement and give Bath firms three early Christmas presents – action on business rates, infrastructure and apprenticeships. The wish-list comes from Business West, the organisation that runs Bath Chamber of Commerce. It wants to see the Chancellor build on the improving...
A 20,000 sq ft industrial building on a popular trading estate has come onto the market. Commercial property agency Kavanaghs has been appointed jointly with Carter Jonas to market the vacant Unit 3 building on the Leafield Industrial Estate in Corsham by Bath-based commercial property developer HPH. The estate, four miles south of J17...
Manufacturers across the South West are calling for a massive boost to infrastructure and innovation in Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement to build on the strong economic recovery and lay foundations for longer-term economic growth. The call comes from the EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, in its submission to the Autumn Statement. It focuses heavily...
Four of Bath’s most-exciting tech innovators are to bid for funding worth £30m in front of an audience made up of some of the UK’s top investors. The firms, all members of the city’s SETsquared innovation incubator, will take part in the real-life Dragon’s Den-style showcase at The Shard in London next Wednesday. The...
Innovative Bath firms developing sustainable ways of producing and using energy had the chance to showcase their pioneering work to a Government minister earlier this week. Energy and climate change minister Amber Rudd visited Bath on Tuesday to discover how the South West is leading the world in low carbon development. Ms Rudd attended...
Investing in innovative new products and technologies while expanding its international markets has paid off for West Wiltshire manufacturer Avon Rubber, which has reported a 21% leap in annual profits. Pre-tax profits at the Melksham-headquartered group came in at £16.6m for the year to September 30 despite sales slipping slightly to £124.8m. The group,...
Staff at SciSys, the Chippenham-based specialist software firm, have been celebrating their role in the historic touchdown of the Rosetta space mission’s lander on the comet 67P some 500million km from Earth. SciSys developed the software for the mission control system (MCS) for the European Space Agency (ESA) project. The software has been used...
Small and medium-sized businesses are to get access to world-class CAD CAM (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture) tools and rapid prototyping through 3D printing at a new enterprise centre. Opened last week at Wiltshire College’s Lackham campus near Chippenham, pictured, the centre is aimed at boosting product design in businesses by fast-tracking product development...
Three Bath-based subsidiaries of international engineering consultancy BMT have gained national recognition for encouraging the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians in schools around the city. The firms – BMT Defence Services, BMT Hi-Q Sigma and BMT Isis – topped the Organisation of the Year category at the recent regional STEM (science,...
