SATRA announce major expansion in 2003

SATRA Technology Centre have revealed major expansion plans for their second site at Wyndham Way in Kettering. The UK's leading research and technology centre for consumer product industries, are spending £1.5 million to build a 26,000 sq ft extension to their existing facilities - which currently includes product testing laboratories, a test equipment-building workshop and design and print complex. Work will start in February 2003. SATRA's Board sees the move as an ideal opportunity to enlarge their state-of-the-art facilities with which to meet the technological demands of the 21st Century. Announcing the development, chief executive Dr Ron Whittaker says: 'This is the largest single investment in new facilities made by the technology centre in their 84 years of existence. 'In time the new building will become SATRA's new headquarters, but the Board has no immediate plans to dispose of our three-acre site at Rockingham Road in Kettering. 'For more than 50 years SATRA have operated very successfully from this site which is also being developed into an Innovation Park for new technology businesses in partnership with The Business Exchange in Kettering. 'SATRA are still a membership organisation and the development will be fully funded from the centre's own resources.' For many years SATRA have operated as the leading international research and technology organisation for the global footwear and related industries. They have now expanded operations to successfully cover other consumer product industries. These include sectors such as furniture, safety products, clothing, fabric care, floorcoverings, homeware and automotive applications. Dr Whittaker says that the new laboratories and specialist test areas will allow SATRA to substantially expand their furniture, automotive and safety product testing areas. At the same time it will provide an opportunity to create a state-of-the-art chemical instrumental analysis laboratory to identify hazardous substances in consumer products. He expected staffing levels, currently 185, to increase as the centre develops in the next few years - particularly as SATRA had applied to become a Notified Body for the EU Construction Products Directive which is increasingly being incorporated into UK legislation.