AREA FOCUS: NORTH HERTS AND STEVENAGE
Diversity is key to business success in North Herts
Located less than 40 miles north of central London, North Hertfordshire is a predominantly rural district and is home to interesting market towns and numerous picturesque villages and hamlets. It’s an attractive area in which to live and work and has a wide variety of attractions including museums, galleries, historic markets, parks and areas of natural beauty.
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here are also numerous vibrant towns in North Herts – each with their own distinctive character. Hitchin, Baldock and Royston are medieval market towns, each retaining numerous historic buildings, while Letchworth Garden City is worldfamous as the first Garden City. The larger shopping centres of Stevenage, Luton, Welwyn Garden City and Watford are all within easy travelling distance of North Herts, and Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Lakeside and Bluewater are less than an hour’s car journey away.
Given North Herts’ rich diversity, it’s perhaps not surprising that the area has an eclectic mix of businesses. One of those is Mettler-Toledo, a global manufacturer and marketer of precision instruments for use in laboratory, industrial and food retailing applications. With a base in Royston, the company has a broad product offering and one of the largest global sales and service organisations among precision instrument companies. One of Mettler’s Herts-based operations is Safeline X-ray, which produces highprecision x-ray inspection systems for the food and pharma processing and manufacturing sectors. Chris Plant, Head of Operations at Safeline X-ray, says that there are numerous trading benefits from being based in Royston. “Royston has excellent transport links to the north and south of the country, via road and rail,” he says. “It’s also ideally placed to access major air and sea terminals, making our logistical operations easier.”
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INSPIRE
We recently moved into our purpose-built manufacturing facility, which will accommodate our projected growth as a business. We’ll continue to benefit from ongoing investment in the local infrastructure and this will allow our business to expand further.
“In addition, Hertfordshire is a great county to live and work in; it attracts the kind of talented people we need in the technical food and pharma industries.” “There are one or two challenges to navigate – namely, the paucity of local accommodation in the Royston area. For a global company with customers who travel across the world to visit us, that’s sometimes a problem.” “We recently moved into our purposebuilt manufacturing facility, which will accommodate our projected growth as a business. We’ll continue to benefit from ongoing investment in the local infrastructure and this will allow our business to expand further. Our aim is to develop our existing team by attracting talented individuals from the surrounding areas, as North Hertfordshire remains a hub for technical expertise.”
