The sales and service in Ireland and Northern Ireland of eight leading German machine tool ranges for which Geo Kingsbury (www.geokingsbury.com) is the sole agent will now on be co-ordinated from an office in Belfast, rather than from the company’s headquarters in Gosport, Hampshire.

Martin Blakely, a time-served engineer with nearly 30 years’ experience of operating and selling CNC machines, has been appointed business development manager and will take charge of the new office, which is adjacent to the historic Harland and Wolfe shipyard.

The companies for which Geo Kingsbury is the agent are: Haas Schleifmaschinen (grinding machines); Index and its subsidiary Traub (CNC single- and multi-spindle lathes); Hermle (three- to five-axis machining centres); and four manufacturers of large prismatic metal-cutting machines — Burkhardt + Weber, F Zimmermann, SHW and Waldrich Coburg (the latter also produces vertical turning lathes).