A Somerset bathroom manufacturing firm has secured a £2.2m contract to supply the redevelopment of the former Elizabeth Arden perfume factory site in London, which is being turned into flats.
Highbridge-based Offsite Solutions will make 422 ready assembled bathroom units or pods for Telford Homes' residential scheme in North Acton.
The project will transform the former cosmetics site on Wales Farm Road - acquired by Telford Homes for £28.1m last year - into 374 homes for rent across three residential towers.
Offsite Solutions said it would make three different types of unit for the project, including bathrooms and shower rooms for shared ownership and homes for private rent, and bathrooms for affordable housing.
The pods will be fully fitted in the company’s factory in Isleport Business Park, and delivered to the site in London by spring 2023, ahead of the development’s scheduled completion in 2024.
The deal is the latest in a raft of multi-million pound jobs for Offsite Solutions, which last month reported a record order intake, with nearly £40m of new contracts secured.
One of these saw the firm provide nearly 1,000 pods for one of the UK’s largest build-to-rent development schemes, The Cherry Park project, opposite London’s Westfield Stratford City shopping centre.
Managing director James Stephens said: “As the build-to-rent sector continues to evolve and mature in the UK, we are seeing a significant uplift in enquiries and orders for bathroom pods for mixed tenure build-to-rent projects, such as the Perfume Factory.
“We expect this demand to continue to increase as more investors look to diversify their portfolios with the creation of sustainable new neighbourhood communities and following successes in student living.”
In 2000, Elizabeth Arden’s then-owner Unilever announced its intention to close the North Acton factory - originally opened in 1939 - in order to move production to the US and through third parties.
The building was later converted into offices before being demolished to make way for housing.
Singer Elvis Costello previously worked at the factory as a data entry clerk in the 1970s before becoming a full-time musician. He is widely believed to reference his employment there in the song I’m Not Angry from his debut album My Aim Is True .
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