CASE STUDY
ENGLISH FINE COTTONS
SPINNING REVIVAL Andy Ogden from English Fine Cottons has led the team that has brought cotton spinning back to Manchester. Two years on, business is booming.
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ISSUE 5
w 2019
On a winter’s morning the mist is hanging heavy over the river Tame as one drives up to Tower Mill, so much so that its upper floors are barely visible in the gloom. But within half an hour the sky has cleared and the tower once more stands proud on the horizon. The weather that greets our arrival is rather fitting. For just as the tower rises out of the gloom, so Manchester’s homespun cotton industry is once more rising out of the ashes. Andy Ogden has headed the project with support from fellow Culimeta Saveguard directors Brendan McCormack and Steve Shaughnessy. For Ogden this almost feels like a personal calling. “I used to walk past this mill when I was a lad on the way to school. It’s like if we don’t do this, who will? Here we were sitting on the last short staple spinning system in the UK. We knew that if we didn’t do this, then this industry would be lost forever and with it the skills. You know, in 1900 85% of the world’s cotton was spun within just 25 miles of Manchester.” Ogden, with his team, has turned this moral pressure into an extraordinary business opportunity. Indeed just two
years since reopening the mill business is booming, so much so that he is looking to buy new machines as we speak. After a couple of hours in his company you realise that the success of the venture is inextricably linked with Ogden and his team’s mentality. “When you’re a child you are constantly asking why. But then we seem to stop asking why even though it is inherent in all of us to keep asking questions. We seem to get out of the habit of asking why, of problem solving, of innovating. Why is this business succeeding? Because we do exactly these things. Yes, there are a myriad of challenges to face on a daily basis, there are hundreds of reasons why you should not do something. The biggest challenge is turning that mentality on its head.” It also helps that Ogden is passionate about the textiles industry, bemoaning those who put it down as an industry that is somehow outdated and irrelevant. “We need to take this conversation to a higher level. Textiles is actually an industry of the future that can be relied upon, people will always need to wear
We knew that if we didn’t do this, then this industry would be lost forever and with it the skills.
clothes. Technology will only enhance the industry, it won’t supersede it. “Yes, technology might be replacing sowing machinists in some factories. Yes, automation may simplify, streamline, and reduce costs. But the process of textile production will always be needed. People will still need to design and make machines.” Spark So where did the spark of the idea for resurrecting cotton production come from? The answer is to be found in the building opposite Tower Mill which is home to English Fine Cottons’ parent company Culimeta Saveguard. One of the hallmarks of that company is that it manufactures innovative, modern safety products using machinery built in the 1960s and 1970s, machinery that it has acquired from cotton mills that have closed across the city. But instead of spinning cotton on its machines, it uses them for the production of high-performing materials such as Kevlar yarn, stainless steel and glass fibres. As such Ogden had always harboured dreams of also using the machines for their original use. “We used to look out of our window when we were making a brew and see Tower Mill right in front of us. We started thinking, what if we could bring back cotton production, and began investigating. “We were confident that the demand for a product was there from weavers and clothing manufacturers across
the UK because we knew that in order to get hold of spun cotton they were having to buy volume in containers from the other side of the world which was not the most efficient way. They would often end up with more cotton than they needed, and paying more than they needed. So we thought what if we could start cotton production right here, supply weavers quickly, bring their lead times right down, be fleet of foot and be more sustainable?”
Barbados Ogden’s research initially took him to Barbados where he had learnt that the government was keen to revive the cotton industry on the island famed for its Sea Island cotton, one of the longest and finest in the world. “The product has a sheen and luxurious silk and we learnt that the country was looking to resurrect the crop. So we went and talked to firms and the government and looked at how we could develop a crop that was sustainable.” ´14
Tower Mill
Like so many mills of its kind, the 19th century Grade II listed Tower Mill has had a varied history since closing its doors to cotton production in the 1950s, being at various time either empty, used for other manufacturing purposes, or – in this case –as a film studio for the TV series ‘Making Out’ in the late 1980s. Ogden says the decision by Culimeta Saveguard to buy the 130,000 sq.ft building in 2014 made sense on a number of levels. “To be honest we were running out of space at our offices opposite, so for us taking on the mill was something of a low risk option. We knew that if the cotton project didn’t work we could use the space for other parts of our business which have continued to expand. “We had looked at acquiring other buildings in the vicinity, but we kept coming back to Tower Mill. One of the key reasons was our staff. Many live very close by and we didn’t want to be forcing them to travel further afield. We also wanted to reinforce the sense of community around our operations here in Tameside.” Today the inside of the mill is a revelation as serried rows of state-of-the-art machinery, some 50 times more efficient than machines of old, take the cotton through its nine stages of production. w www.gmchamber.co.uk
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