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LEC Refrigeration is a British company manufacturing refrigerators and freezers. ==History== It was formed in 1942 by fishmongers Frank Purley and his brother Charles Reginald Purley (born 1910 in Twickenham) as Longford Engineering Company Ltd. Charles had moved to Bognor in 1929. It began making munitions for the war on ''Longford Road'' in Bognor, but began making experimental refrigerators from 1945. It made its first fridge in 1946, the year the ''Shripney Road'' site was obtained, with production beginning in 1947. The name was changed to LEC Refrigeration on 13 December 1954. Around 60% of its products were for the domestic market, with the rest for commercial use. Before 1956 it was selling more products abroad than in the UK. It was based at the Shripney Works, a 14-acre site at Bersted in the north of Bognor Regis in Sussex, off ''Shripney Road'' (A29) next to the Bognor Regis branch line. On the other side of the railway it had 33 acres of land, part of which was used as its own airfield. Charles Purley would be the company's Chairman for many years until October 1991. The airfield, codenamed EGKC with an asphalt surface, has not been used since 1994. By 1960 only 13% of UK homes had a refrigerator, compared to 96% in the USA. Around that time Lec produced its ''Twelve-Six'' range of fridges, costing £179 each. In 1970 the Co-op (Co-operative Wholesale Society) decided to produce its own range of freezers, manufactured by Lec, which retailed at £93. In 1973 it opened a factory in Northern Ireland. In the 1970s its freezers were the ''Which?'' best-buys. By the early 1980s it had around 1,600 employees and had around 20% of the UK domestic refrigeration market. Its products had the ''Regis'' suffix, to denote where they were made. By the 1980s the company was known as LEC Refrigeration plc, an LSE-listed company. In March 1993 the company laid off staff, and its workforce dropped to below 1,000, when it decided to import its compressors from Denmark instead of making them itself. From 1994 a new £35 million computerised factory was built on the neighbouring New Era industrial estate. From August 2005 production of domestic fridges was moved to Whiston at a site off the A57 near Whiston Hospital run by Glen Dimplex Home Appliances.〔(GDHA )〕 There are plans to redevelop the Bognor site as a Sainsbury's.〔(Bognor )〕〔(Redevelopment )〕〔(Old site )〕〔(Public consultation )〕 The factory is due to be demolished in mid-2011.〔(Demolition )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「LEC Refrigeration」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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