8 minute read
Spotlight Focus Feltham
Feltham an aspirational destination with opportunity and growth
Feltham, the borough’s bustling westernmost town centre, is identified as a District Centre in the London Plan (2021), serving the largely suburban neighbourhoods of Feltham North, Feltham Village, East Bedfont and Hanworth.
Feltham was once home to a thriving aircraft industry and market gardens. Now the town centre includes shopping parades and a managed shopping centre (The Centre) which provides over 60 stores, 800 homes, a hotel, cafes, restaurants, banks, library, health hub, multistorey and surface car parks, and supermarkets. Within four minutes’ walk, the Leisure West complex provides a multiplex cinema (known for Bollywood movie premieres), tenpin bowling alley, bingo hall and restaurants. Leisure West is a key element of the night-time and leisure economy of west Hounslow and surrounding boroughs. Feltham Train Station provides excellent connections to Reading and central London. The town centre is just two and a half miles from Heathrow Airport.
Feltham has connections to some of the most incredible musicians and sportsmen of recent times - Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Jimmy Page and Mo Farah. Commemorative signs of these former residents are dotted around the town centre.
Feltham Vision is Council led and developed with businesses and residents. The vision for Feltham states, “Feltham will flourish from a functional and convenient town into a beautiful and more aspirational destination that celebrates its history. This green and accessible centre will be enhanced with more varied shops, community and leisure facilities. Drawing out the personality and identity of the town through its past famous residents, music culture, heritage assets such as Hanworth House and investing in its green assets will help create a town local resident can be proud of.”
St Catherine’s spire and Feltham War Memorial are two iconic local landmarks, while town centre green spaces, Feltham Green and Bridge House Pond provide valuable places to bring communities together. Substantial improvements have been drawn up for Feltham Green which is home for the Freddie Mercury Memorial. Circling the High Street are the Longford River, industrial estates, Hanworth Park House, extensive green space and the soon-to-be-disposed 14 hectares Feltham MOD site.
Feltham Green is home for the Freddie Mercury Memorial. The tree behind the memorial was planted by Freddie Mercury’s mother. The street sign for Freddie Mercury Close was unveiled by Freddie’s sister, Kashmira Cooke in 2020.
The town centre has been transformed with an extensive programme of improvement works. Footways have been repaved and widened, new street lighting installed, new pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes introduced, bus lanes have been lengthened, carriageways resurfaced and new street furniture put in place.
The designation of Feltham as a GLA Housing Zone will deliver over 3,000 new homes between 2016 and 2026. As such there are large developments underway or recently completed such as New Road Triangle opposite to Feltham Train Station - two residential blocks (11 and 14 storeys in height) to provide 176 residential units, of which 84 units will be social rent units. Permission was granted to EcoWorld London and Hounslow Council’s owned company Lampton360 on 7 January 2022. The Council collaborated with The Centre landlord Aviva and SaveTheHighStreet.org to trial new approaches to tackling vacant units and unlocking quality meanwhile use by hosting a competition to allow Hounslow micro businesses to enter the high street for the first time. Aviva provided a rent and service charge free unit in the Centre for DanTheBikeMan, an affordable bike sales and repairs business to move into, while SaveTheHighStreet provided the wraparound support to help Dan mobilise his business to move into premises for the first time. The trial proved so successful that Dan was able to extend his initial lease by a further three months before seeking a new more suitable unit elsewhere in the borough. New Road Triangle development
Fern Grove – Network Housing are constructing more than 170 affordable units on Fern Grove. Leisure West has been familiar with the mural dedicated to British Olympian Sir Mo Farah since 2017. Russell Finex, who are global manufacturers of industrial separation equipment, commissioned Richard Wilson to complete the mural on the wall of the Russell Finex factory next to Leisure West. The mural connects with the local community to inspire the next generation of sporting heroes. Mo Farah went to the school round the corner from Victoria Road and he trained at Feltham Arena.
GLOBAL EXPORTERS based in Feltham since 1966
You’ve been in Feltham since England last won the football world cup in 1966. What brought Russell Finex to Feltham? And what do you do at the site?
Well, since 1934 we’ve been supplying high quality sieves and during the second world war worked exclusively with the Ministry of Supply to sieve the powder used to manufacture the tracer bullets required by the armed forces.
It was in the 1960s that the company reached a size where it needed to consolidate its manufacturing onto one site. A company director noticed the site, where we are currently based was for sale. Due to Feltham having good transport links, the company took up the lease on the site (subsequently purchasing it in 1993), and since taking it on, we’ve continued to invest in the site and the local community. In the present day, we don’t just manufacture our products in Feltham, but we have the full range of in-house expertise to bring these products to market, continually developing our range and supplying the aftersales support our customers may need.
A discussion with local manufacturer Russell Finex, their continued success and Feltham
We sat down with Ray Singh, Managing Director of Russell Finex, who have been manufacturing their high-quality industrial sieves and filters in Feltham for the last 56 years, to get a sense of why they’ve based themselves in Feltham, their continued success and how Feltham plays its part in that.
It sounds like you’ve got a lot going on at the Feltham site, what has made the Feltham site so important to you and why is it your international headquarters?
As you mentioned, its our international headquarters for a reason! We’ve grown to a +£40m company with over 200 staff at the Feltham site, with about 80% of our business now being for export globally.
Feltham is the perfect location for being such an international company. The proximity to Heathrow Airport is good for exporting our products and enables overseas customers to visit us easily. Additionally, the road and rail links are also reasonably good, with trains into central London in around 20 minutes and quick access to the M3 and M4. The point from the 1960s about having everything under one roof still stands. Having such a large site in Feltham means we can ensure the quality throughout our products’ production process whilst maintaining good communication between all the different departments of the Company.
As a company you’ve not just invested in the business, but we’ve seen you actively engaging the local community through your Corporate Social Responsibility. Can you talk about why this is important to you and what you do locally?
We’ve been based in Feltham for 56 years out of the 88 years we’ve been in business, we know being in Feltham has been an important part of our success, and we see it as an important part in our continued success. As such, we want to do what we can to support Feltham’s success and would encourage other local businesses to also do so. As a company, we’ve got a particular focus on young people and support a variety of local groups including St George’s Youth Club in Hanworth and local schools in the area such as the Reach Academy.
We do this because providing educational and employment opportunities to young people in the area helps further their careers and life opportunities and at the same time helps us in getting access to the great pool of local people we can employ to help keep the company on the path of continued success.
We’ve also focused on the environment and support local causes like Friends of Feltham Green and have made investment decisions to reduce our carbon emissions, such as installing solar panels and a wood-chip burner. These not only advance our efforts to minimize our emissions and improve our local environment, but it has also helped us with the soaring energy bills.
You’ve also been heavily involved with Hounslow Chamber of Commerce, can you talk a little about your engagement with them and what value you see from that engagement?
We see Hounslow Chamber of Commerce as such an important local asset to businesses in the borough. They help provide us with guidance and assistance on issues we face as a business be that local planning applications, international shipping or applying for prestigious awards such as the Queen’s Award and much more. They are the “go to” place when we need any kind of business help or advice. Their assistance has helped us navigate challenges set out in front of us and help us course our path to continued success. chamber and truly engage in what it does to see maximum benefit, not just for themselves but the wider Hounslow community and local economy.
Finally, what does the future hold for Russell Finex and Feltham?
This past year we’ve made many decisions about continued investment in Feltham. From purchasing the adjacent building at the back of our site to getting planning permission for expanding our stores and building a new office building. We’ve also just started work on some additional on-site car and bicycle parking spaces to help cater for our staff.
From that, you’ll see we’re committed to our Feltham site and the local community too, and hope to continue being a major local business for many years to come. We’re pleased to have Russell Finex as a key local business in Feltham, and we’re sure you, the reader, are too. If you’re interested in Russell Finex or working for them, you can find more information at their website:
www.russellfinex.com/careers
