Anthea McIntyre MEP has praised a West Midlands engineering company for its exporting success and for bringing jobs back to the UK during a visit to their Droitwich site.
The Conservative MEP recently enjoyed a tour of Barton Coldform’s 55,000 sq ft factory at Stonebridge Cross Business Park in Droitwich.
Barton, Europe’s leading manufacturer of bespoke safety critical fastenings and special cold forgings, produce fasteners, bolts, nuts, rivets and screws for an increasing range of sectors.
During the visit Anthea chatted with Barton Coldform’s management team and production staff who took time to demonstrate their engineering processes and their new machinery, recently installed as part of a significant investment into the factory.
Andrew Nuttall, Managing Director of Barton Coldform, advised Anthea that Barton exports 22 million component pieces every single month to 21 countries across the globe. Andrew went on to speak about the increasing importance of the lightweighting to manufacturing and of Barton’s particular success in understanding and delivering to the technical challenges of their focus markets; Germany, India and Asia.
McIntyre, said: “I find manufacturing and engineering firms fascinating, and the visit to Barton Coldform gave me a real insight into the particular skills that are allowing them to deliver success in the diverse markets they work across.
“I was very impressed by the site, the investments Barton has made, the re-shoring of jobs and most importantly, the staff, who from the conversations I had during the tour of the production facility, are clearly an able, dedicated and happy workforce.
“It is reassuring to hear that Barton is exporting its products, around the world, and include success in the German market, which is to be applauded given how challenging a market that is.
“Companies like Barton Coldform are one of the reasons why I like representing the West Midlands, a constituency that really does sit at the heart of the renaissance in UK manufacturing and long may it continue.”
The Conservative MEP also enjoyed a visit to the brand new, £15,000, quality inspection office, where she learnt about Barton’s recent recruitment drive through which saw the reshoring of a number of skilled manufacturing jobs back to the UK.
Nuttall said: “It was very encouraging to hear our local MEP talk in such glowing terms about our export and re-shoring achievements, two successes of which I am particularly proud.
“Anthea was highly engaged throughout the visit, wanting to know about the business, our challenges and our plans for the future. We spent time discussing Europe, its markets, opportunities and legislation, and how Anthea might be able to provide direction and support with some of the challenges posed by the EU such as REACH.”
Barton Coldform is one of the UK’s oldest cold forging manufacturers, formed almost 80 years ago, founded by Cyril Field, the inventor of the Fixt-nut, an innovative fastener used across the automotive sector for over 50 years.
Since then Barton Coldform has grown into one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of bespoke critical fastenings and special cold forgings, supplying some of the world’s biggest names in the automotive, construction, marine and military markets.