Bedford

Below are just some of the examples of the more recent company relocations that serve to highlight the increasing attractiveness of the location, labour force and lifestyle the area offers.

	Probe Scientific www.probescientific.com Biomed spin-out from Babraham Research, Cambridge - November 2005 Neil Smith, newly appointed CEO of Probe Scientific, who joins founder Dr Mark O’Connell from the University of Cambridge (Board member Medilink East), said “As we roll out the next stage of our business plan we needed a location and set-up that provides us with good communications, office and lab space and flexibility to grow, at a competitive price in a one-stop package. This plus the availability of well-specified meeting and presentation facilities at Bedford i-lab will allow us to provide a professional environment for suppliers, funders, partners and potential customers as well as the team, as we evolve”.
	Warner Brothers www.warnerbros.co.uk 'Warner Bros looked at a number of different locations around the London area for Batman 5, 'The Intimidation Game' and the brief was to find an enormous building, that also had a great deal of height, to construct a major film set. One of the reasons for choosing the hangar at Cardington was the sheer size of the building, which meant that larger sets than ever before could be built inside, thus giving the Company a greater latitude on building - i.e., exterior sets built inside, means we can create and control our own weather conditions. The hangar at Cardington was ideal and occupation was taken from the 8th of December 2003. The 1st stage was to demolish all of the buildings not required for the set and the 2nd stage, starting in the January, was to install workshops. There were about 50 craftsmen working at this stage, increasing to 150 during the main set building phase. In addition, we hired a large number of local extras to use during the filming stage.
	Argos www.argos.co.uk In Christmas 2002 Argos Direct opened their second major distribution centre to service the south of England. This 657,000 square foot facility now employs over 600 staff. One of the major considerations in Argos's choice was Bedford's central location and the fact that Bedford is 'strategically placed on the A421, close the M1 and A1.' Another crucial factor was the availability of land for large-scale warehouse development, not to mention the labour pool, necessary for such an expansion.
	Twelve Horses UK www.thuk.co.uk Twelve Horses are an 'Online Marketing Agency', who specialise in providing a fully managed online marketing service, or supplying the tools and support for companies to manage their online marketing in-house and in some situations a mixture of both. Twelve Horses UK, located in Bedford since November 2003, operate with 5 members of staff and are represented with other offices in Reno Nevada, Salt Lake City, New York, Johannesburg and Dublin. Twelve Horses UK chose to operate from Bedford for a number of reasons. The key benefactors were its central location, as the office supports the entire country, it was important that the location was close to London, but also easy access to the major motorways M1 and A1M was important. Commercially, Bedford was also a viable option. Although London, Milton Keynes and Birmingham are all within an hour and a half, Bedford is very reasonable with regards to cost of premises, also staff remuneration doesn't have the heavy London weighting costs. Twelve Horses were also impressed with the variety of offices available, settling for a modern business centre with excellent facilities on site.
	Highways Agency www.highways.gov.uk The Eastern region office of the Highways Agency has been in Bedford for a number of years, but their board recently committed to moving from their original offices to a large modern office development at Woodlands, Bedford in the autumn of 2005. With 320 staff in the area, this shows the Agency's commitment to the area, maintaining it's current skills base. With such a large organisation as the Highways Agency, it was important that the area could provide large, high quality office developments such as Woodlands in order to retain the Highways Agency. In a recent government report comparing various locations potential for relocating Government departments away from Whitehall, Bedford scored highly for Policy Making, and knowledge and research related functions. This places Bedford in a strong position to benefit from future Government relocations and sends a message of confidence to private investors.
	Gamatronic UK Power Systems www.gamatronic.com Gamatronic are an Israeli company that design and manufacture uninterruptible power systems for a range of different applications. Gamatronic UK moved to their Bedford office on April 1st 2004 and employ 12 staff. Gamatronic's director Robert Hamilton recently relocated their UK office to Priory Business Park in Bedford due to the 'availability of high quality, brand new offices; available at a lower rental price than surrounding areas'. Gamatronic currently have offices in Israel, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and Singa