Keeping it close: Air Equipment moves to new head office

Joined by customers, suppliers and former employees, the compressed air equipment business, which employees 34 staff, celebrated in style with a grand opening, also marking more than 40 years of business.

"In the past seven years, we have almost doubled our number of employees and have expanded our offering to accommodate larger and more specialist customers in the manufacturing sector, including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals and aerospace to name a few.  With a growing order book and more staff, it was clear we needed more space," explained Martin Baker, director at Air Equipment. 

The business is owned by the Billington family, with father, Ellis and his two sons Rob and Ian, who is managing director, involved in operations.  Their grandfather, William Jesse Billington had bought land near the town centre back in 1923 and had built a car showroom and workshop on the site which ran successfully for many years.  It proved the ideal location for the expanding business and the company set about renovating!

"We needed to create a head office that was fit for the future and our growth plans. So, as well as creating a space for our administrative and operational functions, we also converted the former garage workshop into a service, testing and spare parts storage area," Baker continued.

"This enables us to better serve our customers’ needs with fast supply of genuine CompAir compressor parts and reliable compressed air equipment maintenance.

"It was fantastic to be joined by our valued customers, our trusted suppliers and to welcome retired employees to the celebrations.  It was also great to see many of our local business neighbours support us at the event, even including the builders and decorators that helped with the renovations!  

"As well as live demonstrations of CompAir compressors in our new workshop, we also had presentations on the latest compressed air technologies that can help our customers lower their cost of ownership."

Air Equipment has been a key CompAir distributor for many years and offers the full range of CompAir oil-lubricated and oil-free rotary screw compressors.  It also has offices in Park Royal, London, Bury St Edmunds and Bicester from where it sells and services compressors in the Southeast of England, the Home Counties and East Anglia.

www.air-equipment.co.uk