Reflections on a year of change at Lamonde - From the Manor

Lamonde Automation Ltd distributes and supports a wide range of products for industrial automation, process control and electrical engineering.
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Amongst their products are programmable controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), variable speed drives, servo systems, stepper motor solutions, temperature controllers, power supplies, pushbuttons, selector switches, indicator lamps, and much more.

While much of this may mean little to the average person, the products and services Lamonde provides are essential to the successful automation of systems involved in a diverse range of industries, from food production and transportation to medical and pharmacare. With over 40 years of experience, customers have come to rely on Lamonde’s expertise to keep their businesses efficient and productive.

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Naomi GollowNaomi Gollow
Naomi Gollow
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In 2020, just as COVID 19 kicked in, Lamonde made their move to Manor Royal.

In this week’s “From the Manor” column, Naomi Gollow reflects on a year of change and challenge:

“Having outgrown our previous premises in Caterham, we signed a brand-new lease and picked up the keys for our much bigger mixed warehouse and office unit in Lloyds Court in January 2020. Adapting the building for our needs took several weeks, and we finally moved in during the first week of March just as Covid 19 was reaching out its deadly fingers from mainland Europe to the UK.

Two weeks after we moved in, we furloughed most of our staff, and our beautiful new premises, still smelling of fresh paint, sat almost empty.

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We kept going on a skeleton staff all summer as our customers – transport, food production, and medical supply companies – had to keep functioning, and they still needed spares and replacement and parts.

Manor Royal in lockdown was, as in so many places, apocalyptic. No traffic; no noise from nearby businesses filtering in through the windows; no airport traffic – neither people nor aircraft. Just empty streets, empty buildings, and empty skies, punctuated by the occasional conversation with the odd working neighbour, as the world held its breath and hoped through the phenomenal heat of summer.

We brought everyone back to work in August last year with a mixture of home and office working, bringing all our staff back into the office by January this year, and we count ourselves lucky that we didn’t need to make any redundancies.

We’ve witnessed and felt the buzz of people and businesses gradually returning, although it was still vastly quieter with so many organisations having adapted to working remotely.

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The work-from-home impact on the traffic was welcome at the time, although that’s quickly becoming a distant memory as Manor Royal returns to something more like it’s old pre-Covid self.

Sadly, some businesses will never return, victims of the financial strain of the world stopping for so long. Other buildings stand still and empty as businesses and their people have seen the financial and health benefits of remote working and have chosen to continue with working in that way.

More positi vely, we’ve also welcomed new occupants into neighbouring units, such as Fast Signs, MacMan and The Real Pizza Company, who have all moved into Lloyds Court to make the most of bigger premises to accommodate their growth.

Manor Royal is definitely different these days, and it may never look or feel the way it did at the beginning of 2020; but the roads are buzzing once more, the skies and car parks are starting to fill up again, and the lunchtime queues at the snack vans are as long as ever – all positive signs of growth and evidence of a tentatively recovering local economy.

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At Lamonde we are seeing life gradually return to normal and the demand growing for our products and support, which gives us confidence in our future here in Manor Royal.”

Find out more about Lamonde Automation at www.lamonde.com

Find out more about Manor Royal at www.manorroyal.org

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