A ship-building company is moving from Porchester (near Portsmouth) to Hythe in Kent. Meercat Workboats (
www.meercatworkboats.com), which employs 20 people, will transfer its operations to Hythe Marine Park in September.
The 1,600sq m site has two 20-tonne gantry cranes, an electrical workshop, a hydraulic workshop, aluminium
welding bays, dedicated stores, offices and customer parking. Managing director Jamie Lewis said: “We’ve been searching for a new home for 18 months, and it’s really great news that we’ve found a fantastic landlord in Oceanic Estates and superb new premises.”
The announcement of the move follows a successful three days at
Seawork 2016 — Europe’s largest commercial marine and work-boat exhibition — where Meercat exhibited its MC26 stock boat and received three possible orders.
Nicholas Warren — the CEO of Burgess Marine, Meercat’s parent group — said: “Domestically, the business is
performing ahead of expectations, and the EU referendum has given us a wonderful opportunity to re-energise our export business. It is great news for British work-boat building.”