Saying it loud – very, very loud and very, very clear
Pink Floyd, Killers, Cold Play, Ronnie Scotts, the Royal Opera House, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Rolling Stones – we could go on - and a Gloucestershire business's role in their success.
Dear readers,
Welcome to your first edition of The Raikes Journal of the week. We hope you had a great weekend.
We were gearing up to tell you some rather exciting news about Raikes progress in its march to establish a website for the discerning reader, one built on journalism, original editorials and interesting stories - not blighted by pop-ups, leading with lists of stuff or unedited press releases that no one has bothered to question.
In the end, we held that news back. Perhaps we’ll share it later in the week.
It was actually a press release we saw run elsewhere, unedited, that caught our eye for today’s story. This was a chance to put the lense of Raikes over a business which not only developed the technology that makes its products in demand internationally, but makes those products right here in Gloucestershire too. We hope you find it interesting.
If you’ve not done so yet, please do sign up to receive our usually thrice weekly email editions (like this one). You’ll be joining a growing number who alrady have. And if you really like the dea, please go one better and subscribe as a paying member. You’ll be supporting this CIC on its mission to deliver a thoroughly fascinating on-line experience and insight for you.
With that in mind, we’re offering 25 per cent off in the run up to Christmas as we chase our target for 2024.
NB: Raikes publishes probably the best-read business-related newsletter, pound for pound, in Gloucestershire.
If you are interested in becoming one of the stable of businesses backing Raikes and making all this possible please email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
Your briefing Notes
📉 This story was like searching for a ray of sunshine behind a rather dark cloud. According to the latest figures from Begbies Traynor’s ‘Red Flag Alert’, which looks at the health of UK companies, there was a 27 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of businesses in distress in the South West (39,259 – fifth in the UK behind London, South East, Midlands, North West ). Construction is under the most pressure with 7,338 firms in significant distress. But food and beverage and retail businesses also saw annual increases of 44.5 per cent and 41.5 per cent respectively. The research, for the third quarter of 2024, said nationally there were 632,756 businesses in significant distress, an increase of 32.3 per cent on the same period in 2023. Where’s the silver lining in all that? Apparently, the number of businesses in ‘critical’ financial distress has decreased, falling by 23.2 per cent to 31,201 on the previous quarter and year-on-year by 17.3 per cent.
🔊 Members of the business community are invited to connect with like-minded leaders and listen to two inspirational speakers share their experiences of growing their companies. The event is due to be staged at The Gloucester Growth Hub on Thursday 7 November with all the ticket sales going to The Nelson Trust. On the bill are Deborah Lamplugh, founder of Forthay Granola, and Deborah Flint, managing director of family business Cinderhill Farm. Azets, Benefact Group, Meta Advisors, and WSP Solicitors are the sponsors. The event will raise vital funds to help individuals recover from alcohol and substance misuse. Tickets are £15. Find out more here.
🗺️ 🏉 ⚽ Neil Salmon, the managing director of sports travel business Gullivers Travel and Events International has described the takeover of the Tewkesbury businesses by major rival Keith Prowse as a “thrilling new chapter”. Andy Vinsen, MD of Twickenham-based Keith Prowse, said the merger would allow it ‘to provide a seamless, all-encompassing travel solution’. Gullivers was founded in 1972, becoming Gullivers Sports Travel in 1985. Last year its turnover increased by £6.7 million to £19.6m, making a loss of £208,000. Gullivers and Events International are long standing partners of the Welsh Rugby Union, British and Irish Lions, England overseas Cricket Tours, Abu Dhabi and Monaco Grand Prix, Cheltenham, Royal Ascot and more. Keith Prowse is a subsidiary of ‘sports and entertainment experience specialist’, Levy, a partner to venues including Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Johan Cruyff ArenA, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, London’s O2 Arena, and ExCeL London.
🚜 A top-level judging panel, including Henry Dimbleby and Baroness Young of Old Scone, has been announced for the Royal Agricultural University’s innovative Farm491 Challenge Prize competition. The prize, a partnership between the Royal Agricultural University’s (RAU) Farm491 innovation hub, which is focused on the future of farming and food systems, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, launched last month. It aims to incentivise companies working on products or services that support nature friendly, multi-functional land use. A shortlist of six have been selected to go forward to an online pitching workshop next month (November).
💪🏿🎉Lives of Colour, the Cheltenham headquartered consulting service that supports equality, diversity and inclusion in Gloucestershire, is staging its Black History Month tenth anniversary celebrations tomorrow, 22 October 2024, at the MX centre, the unofficial headquarters of the town’s growing cyber community of businesses. You can find it beside Cheltenham Minster off Chester Way. Arrive for 4pm for a 4.30pm start. You can book your place here.
Law firm retains long-standing rankings in national legal guide
When one of your key sponsors gets showered with praise for being among the very best in its profession what’s not to celebrate?
Cheltenham-headquartered solicitors Willans LLP has been mentioned numerous times in the annual independent publications Chambers UK and The Legal 500’s 2025 edition.
Chambers UK, which is internationally recognised and provides insight into the country’s best law firms, has once again ranked five of Willans’ departments and nine lawyers for their expertise, knowledge and level of service.
Departments recommended in the South West region include Willans’ agriculture & estates, corporate and commercial, litigation and dispute resolution and real estate teams.
Its family law team was ranked in the South West for the first time in 2025, following nine consecutive years in the top tier for Cheltenham and the surrounding areas.
Individual lawyers endorsed by the guide include family law partners Sharon Giles and Jonathan Eager, corporate and commercial partner Chris Wills, agriculture & real estate partner Adam Hale and litigation and dispute resolution partner Paul Gordon.
In the real estate team, partner Nigel Whittaker has also been recognised alongside senior associate solicitor, Charlotte Cowdell who has been named a ‘star associate’ for the second year running. Cowdell is the only real estate lawyer to achieve this status in the South West.
Employment law partner Matthew Clayton is recognised alongside partner Jenny Hawrot, who has been named ‘up and coming’ for a second consecutive year. Hawrot is the only employment lawyer who has been recognised with this status in the South West region.
These results follow the latest rankings for The Legal 500 UK, which recommends 24 Willans’ lawyers across multiple departments. Four of Willans’ partners were recognised as “leading individuals” – Chris Wills, Nigel Whittaker, Paul Gordon and Matthew Clayton – while Hawrot and Nick Southwell are named ‘next generation partners’ for a second year. Both Charlotte Cowdell and Emma Thompson have also retained their ‘rising star/associate to watch’ status. You can find out more here.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this community interest company too. In an era when local journalism is all but gone and websites covered in pop-ups and full of advertorials, lists and unedited press releases, we are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire, the series that follows the financial fortunes of our biggest firms by turnover. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable. Please do join us.
If you sign up now you can take advantage of our 30 per cent off offer - and become a member for a year for just £84, which works out at £7 a month or £1.62 a week!
Saying it loud – very, very loud and very, very clear
Pink Floyd, Killers, Cold Play, Ronnie Scotts, the Royal Opera House, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and even the Rolling Stones – we could go on. All these bands and venues have a Gloucestershire business to thank for sounding so good.
by Andrew Merrell.
This shorter than usual read came together in part because The Raikes Journal has been waiting for an excuse to shout about this Gloucestershire business for a while.
Unless you know a thing or two about very high performance loudspeakers, like who makes the very best of them and where they come from, you probably won’t have heard of this company, which is ironic considering being heard well is what they specialise in.
But ATC Loudspeakers (AKA ‘Loudspeaker Technology Ltd’) is one of those businesses that lets its product do the talking, and it continues to speak volumes to venues as prestigious as the Royal Opera House, ChinaWalt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles and the famous Ronnie Scotts club in London and bands including Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Cold Play, Killers.
And that’s just a tiny fraction of its customers or of those who have sounded better because of what this Gloucestershire business does – produce some of the world’s very, very best loudspeakers.
Why is it news?
A press release has just gone out and was posted elsewhere declaring “a new industrial unit near Stroud has been let to Loudspeaker Technology, a leading loudspeaker and electronics manufacturer, on a 10-year term”.
Which seemed to rather miss a great opprotunity, that this is not only a business hiding in plain sight in the Stroud valleys for years, but a second-generation family firm founded on British ingenuity and technical expertise.
And one that continues to stay ahead in a market inhabited by some very, very talented players indeed.
For Robert Hitchins, Gloucestershire royalty itself when it comes to property development and management, the story is simple. It’s about ‘Unit 1, a 22,523 square foot facility at the entrance to the new Stroudwater 13 development at Stonehouse’.
Mike Plimmer, senior development manager at Robert Hitchins, does give ATC some recognition in the press release, but doesn’t give too much away.
“We have been really pleased with the rapid take-up of the new industrial space that we have built to date and it’s particularly rewarding to play a role in supporting such a great local company with international reach, providing them with accommodation that is fit for purpose and helps them to stay local,” said Plimmer.
And to be fair, even ATC Loudspeakers’ managing director, Will Woodman, doesn’t really grab the potential opportunity afforded by the press release to spread the word about what his business either!
“We had been looking for a few years for a site to move our cabinet manufacture and warehousing to, and this proved the perfect opportunity due to its close proximity to our main site near Chalford,” said Woodman, whose contacts book looks like a music-lover’s encyclopaedia of dream venues to visit and bands to see before they die.
ATC was founded in 1974 by Billy Woodman, Will Woodman’s dad, to manufacture custom drive units for the professional sound industry. Drive units being the part of a loudspeaker that actually produces the sound you hear. The better the drive unit, the better the sound.
It quickly made its mark with a product it called a PA75-314 ‘driver’, a 12 inch unit that was capable of handling more power and producing less distortion at a higher sound pressure level than any other product on the market.
A ‘drive’ it developed in the late 1990s is said to deliver accuracy in reproducing piano and male vocals that “remains unique”.
Today the business is directly involved with leading players in the professional audio industry including Sony Music and Telarc (an American independent record label). Its products are installed at some of the world’s most prestigious multi-channel studios and auditoria.
That innovation on which the firm was founded continues.
Geeks of arguably less highbrow music than that played by a symphony orchestra, which also benefits from ATC, might be interested to know that legendary producer, engineer, mixer and winner of seven Grammy awards, Vance Powell (pictured above) recently completed a studio makeover at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, USA, installing “the popular ATC 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitor system” to add the future of immersive surround sound to his arsenal.
You may not have heard of Powell, who looks like an amiable younger cousin of either of the front men from the veteran band ZZ Top, but you might have heard of Phish, Chris Stapleton, Jack White, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, or Buddy Guy. He’s worked with them all and more.
Billy Woodman died on 21 July 2022 aged 76. A tribute to the company’s founder on its website, from his son, Will, reads: “His principles, philosophies, and absolute commitment to achieving engineering excellence are the foundation on which ATC is built. At the heart of this was outstanding transducer design and engineering that focused on achieving the best sound reproduction possible.
“Dad’s emphasis on running ATC as a family business has remained and under his leadership and guiding hand, we have ensured that ATC has continued to grow and succeed with the constant support of fellow director and lifelong friend, Bob Polley.”
Raikes did try to contact Will Woodman to contribute, not least to ask him what this move means for its plans to expand on the business’s long-standing site at Gypsy Lane, Aston Down, near Stroud. Is that still on the cards?
A new headquarters was designed by Gloucester architects Robert Hitchins and granted full planning permission in February this year. Woodman is yet to come back to us.
Those plans did look particularly interesting too, not least because for anyone who is itching to try out just how good its equipment the new building would include a “flagship Hi-Fi listening room”.
Gypsy Lane is currently home to five buildings that accommodate the various stages of loudspeaker and audio electronic production, in addition to a sound testing facility, storage, parking and “associated business support services”.