Petone businesses building towers for power and winning awards for housing renovation innovation
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
Local businesses have not abandoned hope amidst the gloom and doom of the global recession, and with necessity as the mother of invention some are even prospering. Headquartered in Petone since 1935, Acme Engineering is currently making tubular steel towers for Windflow turbines at the Te Rere Hau wind farm in Palmerston North.?If the Long Gully Windfarm proposal in Brooklyn goes ahead the company will be able to boast they have supplied their trade skills to the Wellington region. Managing Director of ACME Engineering Duncan Fraser says creating turbine towers since 2006 has been a lucrative market for them to be involved with. ?Right now most of our work is ending up outside of Wellington. ?It?s a good industry to be involved with because it?s going to keep growing with demand for alternative energy supply,? says Mr Fraser. He says the wider implications of clean energy are a ?feel good factor? for the company. The company has 70 people on their payroll, of which most are from the local area, and they have not laid anyone off during the economic depression. ?The recession did not catch up with us until 2009, and we are going well. ?We are not very top heavy, don?t spend on promotion, and spend more on getting the job done,? he says. On a smaller scale, Nicola Habbitts is a local freelance architectural designer who has clients in Eastbourne, Petone and Lower Hutt. As a result of the recession fewer people commissioning new housing builds, and as Nicola?s company Design Habbitts specialises in renovations she has ?not seen a huge drop off in work?. ?The size of peoples? budgets has dropped, for example if someone would originally spend 100,000 that is now down to 60,000. ?People are getting much better value for money,? she says. The economic climate has made her even more aware of cost effectiveness, and she was recently named as the winner of First Time Entrant, Kitchens Award, and a Resene Colour Finalist in the Lower North Island Architectural Designers New Zealand Awards.
