Former Thales Site (Wells)

 electronics, production, do not draw title

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Closed in 2011.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/8706608.stm

French owned military electronics company.

As Penleigh Works this was originally built as a Prisoner of War Camp - mainly used to 'incarcerate' German POWs - mostly in a series of a large number of single storey billet-style 'huts'.
Once WWII was concluded and almost all of the former prisoners repatriated, it was taken over by EMI Electronics.
One of the firms which had combined to form this growing electronic / musical conglomerate had been Scophony Baird Ltd who had been evacuated to Wells during the war, and had occupied fairly cramped and makeshift accommodation in Town Hall Buildings. Looking to firmly establish this firm in Wells with scope for expansion, Penleigh was ideal.
The buildings lent themselves to disparate functions and the rural setting was a 'selling feature' to attract staff - often de-mobbed articifers, more senior ranks as well as qualified electro-mechanical engineers and the like - to a comparatively lower-paid area to the firm's pre-war base in West London and Wembley.
Gradually, former 'huts' were demolished and new buildings replaced them - such as the main office/admin block, the machine shop, and then several large single storey workshops for electronic assembly, inspection and testing.
During the 1950s, the factory was almost totally rebuilt / modernised for precision engineering and complex electro-mechanical research, design, manufacture and prototype assembly.
By the end of the decade and throughout most of the 1960s, around 1000 people worked there - drawing on people from a 20 mile radius; travelling by coach from Bristol, Weston and Norton-Radstock areas. EMI subsidised the coach fares & also ran a decent canteen at modest prices.
EMI, as the overall umbrella parent company was by then thriving on the massive boom in British Pop & Rock record sales at home and abroad, with the Beatles, for example, swelling the coffers.
Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont, brothers who had built their reputations and 'empire' in the showbiz and entertainment industries spearheaded this.
This meant that purist electronic engineers found themselves working for a company owned by people who had little interest in pioneering electronic design; indeed, a company which owned Elstree Studios, London Palladium, Blackpool Tower and ATV - one of the main Independent TV Companies !
Lord Delfont etc some of whom were market traders, seemed to be driven by easily determined and self-evident profits / margins, less quantifiable in R&D. EMI Electronics' fortunes declined somewhat in the late 1960s. Since then a number of different companies have operated the site before Thales took control following the gradual break-up of EMI Ltd itself (eg Thorn-EMI, Racal Electronics).
The numbers employed fell in the the late 60s/70s but it is understood that the number has now stabilised again though well short of the 1000 or so who worked there in the early 1960s.
Despite this, it remains the largest employer left in Wells, as the former Dairy (Unigate) has just been demolished, and Clares Engineering - borne out of part of a small local family firm historically making milk churns, milking smocks and brushes eventually sold the engineering side their business. By the 70s & 80s it had become one of the largest producers of supermarket trolleys in the country. However in 2007 production progressively switched to the Czech Republic.
Under Thales, Wells has retained the now sole medium-sized employer who offer the type of high-tech work which can retain well-qualified local people and employees less technically / scientifically skilled.
In an interesting aside, and perhaps not atypical of a close-knit community, the young men and women who had been evacuated (and some still live in Wells) and who spent their entire working lives at 'Scophonies' or 'EMI' were still referred to as 'newcomers' or 'those outsiders' for most if not all of their lives in Wells. John (ja_gibson@tiscali.co.uk) 7/3/2008