Europe’s biggest trailer maker has been hailed as a "world class" manufacturer by the Shadow Welsh Secretary.

The praise from Cheryl Gillan MP came during a visit to the headquarters of Ifor Williams Trailers in Cynwyd, Denbighshire.

She was accompanied by the Conservative Euro candidate Kay Swinburne, North Wales AM Brynle Williams and John Bell, the party’s Prospective Parliamentary candidate in Clwyd South.

After a briefing from the company’s senior management team, the group were taken on a guided tour of the factory and chatted to members of staff.

The company marked its 50th anniversary last year and has now made more than 600,000 trailers.

As well as being sold through a network of UK distributors, the trailers are also exported all over the world with distributors as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.

Ms Gillan said: "Whenever you visit an agricultural show or you’re in a farming community or on a building site, you see Ifor Williams trailers everywhere.

"We have a world class production facility here and we need to make sure that is known.

"They have a quality product and they could compete with anybody, anywhere in the world. This is a product to be proud of.

"As a politician, my message is that I want to make sure that we create the right economic conditions so that a company like this can thrive.

"To come here and see the trailers being manufactured is really exciting. We are losing our manufacturing industries in Wales.

"The way in which the downturn has disproportionately affected manufacturing is a major problem. We need to keep these jobs in Wales and in the United Kingdom.

"A lot of the materials used by the company are sourced here – in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom – and the company make their own axles here.

"They have a really lean production process here and it’s just three weeks from order to production – so if somebody comes in and wants a blue horsebox they can deliver it.

"They are selling internationally which shows the great strength of this product and they are selling into markets that only historically bought this type of trailer from their own indigenous manufacturers.

"We have here a company and a product with a dedicated management team and a dedicated workforce.

"I have been talking to the people who work on the shopfloor and a couple of them have worked here for 17 and 20 years respectively..

"They have a very good management team and they work with customers, the sales team and the production team.

"For me it’s been a very valuable exercise coming here today, and a great privilege to have so much time spent with me and our team in the Conservative Party.

Euro candidate Kay Swinburne was equally impressed with what she saw.

She said: "It’s a major employer in the area and I have been very interested today in the impact of some of the proposed legislation coming from Europe.

"That’s something very important to keep an eye on to make sure that when we implement legislation that we do it correctly and make sure that the businesses don’t suffer."

Managing Director John Williams added: "We are very proud of what we do here and our achievements as a company.

"We were impressed with the insight and interest shown by Cheryl Gillan and the rest of the team."

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News » Trailer maker hailed as world class