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Above: Lorraine and Mark Woolfenden - Managing Director of Afonwen Laundry

AFONWEN LAUNDRY COMPLETES £5M INVESTMENT PROGRAMME IN CARDIFF
posted on 31/07/2008

Afonwen Laundry Limited, Wales’ leading laundry & linen hire company, has completed its £5 million investment in Cardiff, opening a major new commercial laundry in an area offering tremendous growth opportunities.

I was delighted to support and open the multi-million pound investment made by Afonwen Laundry in St Mellons and am delighted it's proving to be such a success. Afonwen Laundry is a very dynamic company which I believe will make a positive long-term contribution to the local area, and to the regional and national economy.

The investment has opened up local job opportunities with the very real prospect of creating more in the near future. This investment goes to show that Wales is an attractive place to work and to do business. Fantastic news all round.

The new state-of-the-art production facility has the capacity to handle over 500,000 items of linen per week and operates to the highest environmental standards, recycling up to 70% of the water that it uses through its production process.

On full commissioning, Afonwen’s Cardiff production facility processed in excess of 160,000 items of linen in its first full week of service to customers. The Cardiff production facility is serving Hotels throughout South and Mid Wales, the South West of England and West Midlands regions.

The new laundry is believed to be the fastest ever start-up of a major new production facility in the United Kingdom.  The installation and full commissioning went ahead in less than six months from ordering of the machinery to becoming fully operational and marks a major achievement in the history of the company with it working in partnership with key equipment suppliers as well as Bank of Scotland and the Welsh Assembly Government in order to deliver the project in the fastest possible time to take account of the significant market opportunity which exists in a region poorly served with limited alternative suppliers in the laundry industry.

The project was financed by over £5m of funding from Bank of Scotland Corporate and a grant of over £350,000 from the Welsh Assembly Government. The Directors of the company also invested an undisclosed sum.

The overall project is believed to be the single largest laundry equipment contract ever placed in Wales and represents an important step in enabling Afonwen to be the only laundry and linen hire company offering full geographic coverage of the whole of Wales, as well as substantial parts of the North West, Yorkshire, West Midlands and South West regions of England.