Clear views ahead for Wakefield conservatory outlet with £500k investment

A conservatory specialist based in West Yorkshire is set to invest half a million pounds into the expansion of the business.

Conservatory Outlet, which makes windows, doors, home extensions and conservatory products, has unveiled plans for a £500k investment into its manufacturing capabilities.

The firm, which employs 174 people at its 60,000 sq ft factory in Wakefield, is looking to build on a period of growth during lockdown in which it achieved over £4m of sales.

With the new investment, a series of improvements will be completed in four stages and include a number of infrastructure enhancements and the addition of a new ACT Schirmer Cutting and Routing machine.

In addition, the firm plans to construct a new 10,000 sq ft factory extension in the new year.

Michael Giscombe, managing director at Conservatory Outlet, commented: “Manufacturing is at the heart of what we do and it is vital for us to continue to invest in our factory so we can meet growing customer demand across existing and new product ranges.

“Our network of retailers has achieved amazing success in recent months and this led to us exploring new ways to increase capacity whilst maintaining lead times. The opportunity to purchase the latest technology and make some key changes to our infrastructure will make a huge difference at just the right time,”

“With all of the improvements, plus the factory extension, we believe we can increase capacity by 20 per cent next year and, if the pipeline of sales is anything to go by, we’re going to need that production flexibility.”

Co-owner Greg Kane added: “Like most businesses we were temporarily hit by Covid-19, but decided to tackle issues created by the pandemic head-on, launching a ‘lockdown sales competition’ that achieved £4m in just seven weeks.

“To support this, we also accelerated the launch of our innovative new design app, which gives customers the freedom to design and price hundreds of styles of windows and doors online via zoom.”