Let’s Go Huddersfield had the chance to sit down with Alastair from Accu as part of our series “In The Know”
Read on for more!
Introduce yourself! What is your name and your role?
My name is Alastair Morris and I’m the managing director of Accu.
Can you tell us a bit about Accu’s work and background in the area?
Accu was founded 13 years ago by two local guys in their bedrooms with the vision of becoming the ‘Amazon’ of engineering components. However, the business became really successful within its niche and now considers itself a specialist in its industry. We supply high-quality precision engineering components to professionals and businesses. We provide a level of technical information for all those components and a brilliant e-commerce experience that’s pretty unrivaled. We’ve got a warehouse with 50,000 components in it ready for same day dispatch, and our website has another half a million components on it.
What keeps Accu in Huddersfield?
We’re very proud of where we come from without a doubt. We have 120 employees who are all local and very much rooted in this area. Last year, we moved into this building in Holmfirth and the decision was very clear to move into a new place in Huddersfield to continue bringing in local talent and help the local economy grow. We love seeing the businesses around us thrive because then we all thrive.
How has Huddersfield helped Accu grow as a business?
The people who started the business had a variety of support over the years. Once they moved out of their bedrooms, they moved into The Media Centre then into our previous warehouse and now we’re in this one. We have had loads of local support at every step in our growth. Part of the reason we’re in this warehouse is because of having a local landlord and supportive local businesses. We utilise lots of local businesses to support us too, for example our marketing and legal support are both local.
We also recruit locally and work closely with Kirklees College and their apprenticeship schemes to train local talent. We’ve also got great links to the University of Huddersfield now.
Why should businesses and their workers live and work in Huddersfield?
I’ve lived and worked in lots of different places over my career and I’ve come back to this part of the country quite deliberately. I think that the balance of being able to live and work somewhere that’s a really nice place is important. This is a beautiful part of the country and you can get out into that incredibly quickly but there’s also good links to major cities like Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield without having to deal with that big city life.
What is the manufacturing industry like in Huddersfield?
Huddersfield has an incredible engineering tradition and having that history is so important for the current generations. Even our current building was formerly a motor factory in the 1950s. It runs through the veins of Huddersfield to make things and with the newer generations coming in and combining that innate feeling with the digital assistance of the modern day – it’s really inspiring to see and a good indicator of the future.
What change would you like to see in Huddersfield?
It undoubtedly needs investment but I really feel a strong sense that’s coming now. People have been waiting a long time for it but I think the tide has turned and now momentum will start to build and it’ll all happen together: the transport investment, infrastructure, the quantity and quality of venues and so much more. The investment in the football club is really central to a lot of change and it’s really good to see that the owner of the club is investing in the town, not just the football. Making Huddersfield a destination for people to come to is really the key change.
Is there anything that you do at Accu to give back to Huddersfield?
We’ve got an employee-run group called ‘The AC’ (Accu Community) who lead on our charity work and community engagement. We have a charity of the year every year – our 2025 charity is The Kirkwood. We not only raise money for our charity but we also try and work collaboratively to support them to achieve their goals. All of our employees get one paid volunteering day which we arrange with local charities to keep putting back into the local community.
The other big thing that we do is STEM activities in schools. Our aim is to showcase engineering to the next generation so they can see this as an exciting area to work in and what their careers might look like. We work with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority with some schools, for example our robot fighting competition. The pupils have the opportunity to design a robot, 3D print it and then they can fight their robots with others in our arena.
What do you think Huddersfield’s future looks like?
I’m really optimistic about it! I think that the tide has turned on investment and it can become a really attractive place to live and work. I really see it growing and thriving as more businesses like us grow and reinvest in the local area – it’s already starting to happen. 10 years from now I think it’ll become a really thriving town.
Are there any other comments that you’d like to make?
We’ve not talked so much about the global picture. We won the King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade because of the rate of growth of our exports. Our exporting outside the UK is the fastest growing part of our business by far which is a really important part of our story and future. I think that’s brilliant for Huddersfield as well as there’s components coming out of our warehouse here and going into projects like rockets, robots and race cars all over the world. I think the town should be really proud of that and it’s certainly something we’re going to invest in in the future to put Huddersfield on the map.
