Hersham is well know for the Technology Park, but there is another high-tech hub on Molesey Road. Today, I visited Stan Lawrence and Mick Lowe at Zed Tunnel Guidance and Surrey Amps, and was impressed both with the technical expertise and raw enthusiasm for engineering on display.
ZED Tunnel Guidance develops high-tech guidance for boring tunnels – from Australia to China. Mick and Colin Bent explained how the technology works, and showed me some of the equipment. You can find out more here.
In the next room, Stan and Andrew Lawrence (father and son) run Surrey Amps, a hospital for major loudspeaker equipment, servicing everything from sports stadiums to DJs. You can find out more here.
They are a great advertisement for the kind of niche high-tech manufacturing that too often lies hidden in the borough. Giving the rising cost of labour in Britain (blame the unions) and growing competition from Latin America and Asia, it is fanciful to expect the UK to return to the large scale industry and manufacturing we used to excel at. But, this kind of high-tech engineering and manufacturing remain areas of comparative advantage – we should support and nurture them.