AFTER my column recently on the decline of High Wycombe's furniture industry I received an interesting and informative letter from an 'old hand' in the business, Mr David Wiltshire, once a near-neighbour of mine and now of Flackwell Heath.

David worked for Ercol for 41 years, retiring when he was sales office manager, and his father, Stanley, worked at the bench as a chairmaker before becoming a sales representative. Later, with Arthur Small, Stanley took over a business in Copyground Lane and still later, with little room for expansion, he sold out to a previously London-based company which really wanted the brand name. Subsequently, the whole operation moved to a development in East Anglia. Says David now: "If you look through a current directory of the trade you will notice how many are based in places like Thetford and Andover where subsidies and the availability of greenfield sites made it easier to operate a modern furniture factory. In fact, with modern machinery, the skill factor is less important". Machines now used all over the world, he says, are capable of turning out components amazingly efficiently, to an incredibly high standard and with lower labour costs.

Home industries cannot compete unless offering something very special with such design qualities that people are prepared to pay more for the privilege of owning it. Added value is the name of the game.

David avers that most of the smaller Wycombe makers paid little heed to the warning signs until it was too late. Nepotism saw firms run by new generations without the flair that saw the firms established in the first place. Eventually, land became more valuable than the business.

Most firms did not employ a proper designer and little accurate costing went on. Most firms that have stuck it out, he feels, have done so because they learned the lessons that were there for all to see.

Parker Knoll are now in Chipping Norton, where they had room to add to their other factory, "leaving behind the endless battles with the Wycombe planners on what was possible".

G Plan was bought, again for its brand name, by a holding company mainly in the food sector! Not surprisingly, the commercial potential of the site caused the factory to close and the making of G Plan to be hived off elsewhere.

David says that it has been obvious that the local council has not really wanted manufacturing units in the central area, and his view of the latest problem site, that of Ercol, is that the firm's aim will prove difficult to achieve if they want to stay in the district.

I certainly agree with David when he claims that the nimby factor is so deeply ingrained in modern life that any proposed development is automatically opposed, whether it be for a factory, a motorway service station or a sports complex. Of the present scenario, David feels it will be interesting to see what proposals are made and how difficult it may be to get them through to fruition.

He concludes: "Having worked for Ercol for so long, I hope they will continue.... I do not regret having spent my working life in the furniture industry. However, I always saw it as being one step up from a cottage industry and it has been inevitable that things have changed so much in such a relatively short time."

I hope, along with David, that the present council and the residents who may be involved will heed the lessons of the past and ensure that Ercol stays.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.