Rotherham reflects the history and culture of its suburbs. For me, I grew up in an old mining village, which after the mines left, the town had no industry and it was decades before industry came back in the form of call centres.

Through the last recession Rotherham has been hit hard, and many people have been hit even harder with the closure of the Burberry factory (yes, one of the worlds renowned brands was manufactured in Rotherham) and large scale job cuts at Corus Steelworks, so large that most people who live in Rotherham will know someone first hand who worked at Corus and has been told to find new work, some of whom left school and joined Corus (formerly British Steel).

CMD Ltd’s Head Office and factory is situated in the midst of the closed factories and run down steelworks. Yet CMD has been Manufacturing in Rotherham (one of CMD’s British manufacturing plants) for over twenty five years, and takes great pride in being able to promote this fact.

One comment that that I heard over the weekend and which stuck was from BBC Top Gear, they talked about how in the mid 1970’s 26% of the British work force was employed in manufacturing, yet now it is only 9%, the reason this stuck is that I am part of that 9%.

If someone had asked me ten years ago which industry I would be working in, I don’t think that manufacturing would have been on the list. I was growing up into a world where companies were realising they could produce their products cheaper in foreign countries and import them in, increasing their margins, which makes good business sense by anyone’s reasoning, and by the time I had grown up Britain would no longer be a manufacturing nation.
Now I am employed and working for a British manufacturer I see that there is an array of British manufacturing firms, many of whom are surviving because of a belief that British manufacturing can stand up to the foreign imports, on price and quality, whilst adding the pride of buying British.

Buying British is something we are increasingly seeing in our supermarkets of all places, as we all try to do the ‘right thing’ and support our British farmers, whilst reducing the carbon emissions which flying in fruit and vegetables from around the world causes, as the impact that carbon emissions has on our environment cannot be reversed.

So why aren’t we all supporting more British manufacturers, companies which are producing their goods ‘up the road’ not across the other side of the world.

Written by; Jonathan, Employee of CMD Ltd for 2 Years

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