West Mercia Air Conditioning moves to Herefordshire's Skylon Park to further ambitions

West Mercia Air Conditioning has chosen Herefordshire's Skylon Park as its new home as the business expands nationally.

The firm installs, services and maintains both traditional systems and air transfer heat pumps, with the latter becoming ever more popular since they became zero rated for VAT.

READ MORE: US construction company moves into Skylon Park at Hereford

It said the Hereford Enterprise Zone at Skylon was a "great business park" to be part of and provided "better access, better roads and a better business environment".

It becomes the latest of nearly 40 businesses to have chosen Skylon Park as a base.

Ben Corner, managing director of West Mercia Air Conditioning, said: "The new building is a more visitor-friendly. We do a lot of service and maintenance on really high-end apartments in London so if they want to come and visit, it’s great to show off not just our company but the thriving business landscape here.

"As the business has grown, we are more service and maintenance than installation – we found we need to employ more people and in office space which we didn’t really have," he added.

"It’s been simple enough. We were applying for planning permission in May 2022, so you’re talking about just a year from planning to completion.

"We had planning permission that was free to apply for, which helps. We used Herefordshire developers Collins Design & Build throughout the whole process and it’s great to work with local partners where we can. They also have lots of experience working with the Enterprise Zone team so it’s been pretty painless for me."

Councillor Graham Biggs, cabinet member for economy and growth at Herefordshire council, said the Enterprise Zone was continuing to deliver on its promise to be a catalyst for growth.

"For more than a decade, Herefordshire Council has been supporting businesses to invest and grow at Skylon Park, creating sustainable jobs and developing a varied business landscape which boosts the county economy.

"It’s great to see West Mercia Air Conditioning join that roster of investors and we look forward to welcoming more growing companies on Skylon Park in the coming months," he said.

West Mercia Air Conditioning was originally established in 1977 by Corner's father Roy, who still works three days a week aged 86.

Corner said: "My dad originally set up a company with colleague Bob Bray, who is sadly no longer with us, called West Midland Refrigeration, which was just refrigeration systems. Wales was a big market – he was selling lots of deep freezers, fridges and cold rooms.

"While he was doing that, he noticed he was picking up some inquiries about air conditioning and was doing more and more of that. Eventually they split businesses, amicably – Bob stayed with West Midlands Refrigeration and my father formed West Mercia Air Conditioning."

At 18, Ben Corner joined the firm and took over running it at 40. In that time, the business has grown from three employees to 43 and now trades across the UK.

Skylon says more than £25 million has been invested in the area to make the park ready for business, with several key projects providing cutting edge facilities and high quality accommodation for small businesses to rent.

Visit Hampshire Biz News for bright, upbeat and positive business news from the county