Business History

Ambic is an established company that has been serving schools and businesses across the North East of England since July 1st 1983. Ambic was founded by its present owner Mr David Potter with a bag of tools and a £200 overdraft. Working from a 320 sq ft unit in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne he capitalized on his precise standards as an Engineer to make quality drawing boards.

His technical drawing boards proved popular and as his reputation grew he was invited by the Authority of Gateshead in 1984 to design and make furniture for use in classrooms to house an emerging technology called ‘the computer'.

Ambic invested wisely by expanding the range of its machine tools. This allowed them to adopt additional manufacturing methods to cater for the increasing demand for quality school furniture. The mass-produced furniture within schools at that time left a lot to be desired with regard to strength and build quality and it was the success of Ambic furniture products that firmly established David Potter and Ambic as leaders in the design and manufacture of educational furniture.

In 1986 the business moved to larger premises at Pandon Gate House, 5 City Road, Newcastle upon Tyne. The unit was situated on the first floor of an old fish processing business premises so much renovation work took place to strengthen floors and turn the site into a more suitable manufacturing source.

Access limitations through narrow stairways and around cast iron pillars every twelve feet caused problems with the manufacturing of large furniture items and all materials had to be carried-in by hand off the busy street and up a flight of domestic stairs.

Space was somewhat limited so when a second, ground floor unit became available and then a subsequent cellar unit they were readily taken-on by Ambic. The first floor then became available which allowed for it to be utilised as a woodwork and assembly unit. At its peak, Ambic worked within 3,700 sq ft of disjoined manufacturing space.

The manufacturing efficiency of running an eight-department business across four units that were spread over three floors became minimal and the need for more suitable premises led, in April 1999, to Ambic relocating to the Stella Gill Industrial Estate near Chester-le-Street.

At Stella Gill, the business was spread over four units that had a combined total of a mere 3,600 sq ft. They did, however, have the added advantage of being alongside one another and were all on ground floor level.

To date, the company has continued to expand as units have become vacant and as finance allows. At present (2009) they occupy a 13,440 sq ft manufacturing site spread over nine units and 14 containers. Ambic presently employs 30 office, manufacturing and fitting staff and has grown to be one of the leading providers of bespoke fitted educational furniture in the North East of England.

The fact that they control and manufacture all of the furniture components enables solutions to be as versatile and diverse as their customer's imagination is broad. Ambic offer an unrivalled level of design, construction and fitting of unique furniture and room solutions that satisfy the diverse needs of their customers.

The need for manufacturing space and the demand for larger essential manufacturing tools has hindered business growth on the disjointed Stella Gill Industrial Estate site. This has led David Potter and Ambic to invest in the development of a new factory site.

In February 2007 Ambic secured the purchase of a five-acre derelict greenfield site alongside the Stella Gill Industrial Estate in Pelton Fell, Chester-le-Street, County Durham.