Sheffield-based Abbey Forged Products has been granted planning permission to spend £14 million on a press building in Wadsley Bridge and create up to 55 new jobs — its largest ever investment.
The new building will centre on a 3,000-tonne press — the firm’s first — and will include furnaces and ‘manipulator’ vehicles to transport red-hot forgings. Work is due to start early next year, and the new forge is expected
to be fully operational in 2019.
Managing director Jackie Neal said obtaining permission was a big relief after four years on the project: “This is about expanding our capabilities; we could have hired the press work in, but if people don’t think you have the capability, they won’t come to you.”
Abbey Forged Products has grown from 25 staff in 2004 to 210 today. It makes parts for oil rigs and has branched out into the nuclear and defence sectors in recent times.
A £2.5 million extension to its existing forge is also under construction; this will come on stream in February. The firm also stocks ingots and billets of stainless steel alloys which are sawed, forged, heat-treated and machined on-site.