A WREXHAM business providing opportunities for disabled people, which was threatened with closure two years ago, is going from strength to strength.
Welsh Conservative AM Mark Isherwood said he was hugely impressed when he visited Wrexham’s Remploy factory on Monday.
The North Wales AM met local manager David Chippendale for discussions and for a guided tour of the factory, which in 2007 was one of five of the company’s 12 Welsh factories facing closure.
At that time it had one customer, providing office furniture, but is now thriving with a wide range of clients.
“After the successful campaign to save the factory, the UK Government has set targets for them to work to,” said Mr Isherwood.
“I was hugely impressed by their successful efforts to diversify their customer base and product range.
“I visited the production line where office furniture and bedroom furniture are provided to a high standard by a skilled and dedicated workforce for a range of customers which now include the Ministry of Defence and Birmingham University, among others.”
He added: “Disabled people are disabled by society, not themselves. Each has individual needs and abilities and Remploy is part of the range of provision necessary to give them the opportunities they deserve.
"In reality, Remploy enables disabled people to come to work.”
Remploy employs more than 3,000 people in the UK.
They are responsible for supplying one in three of the desks used by schoolchildren and is also the largest supplier of wheelchairs to the NHS.
Every Remploy factory has a learning centre to provide necessary skills.
They open their doors to the community, providing unpaid work placements and training, giving people who may never have worked before the experience of going to work.