Famous for perfection

Shepshed, a small town in Leicestershire, is situated a mere 30 miles from the village of Meriden which is traditionally held to be the centre point of England. Given the success of optical lab Shepshed Optics, this central location is clearly a propitious site for a business.

‘I am an ex-engineer and I helped set up a lab with my uncle in Loughborough,’ says Clifford Austen, owner of Shepshed Optics. ‘Working there for years I learned an awful lot and went on all sorts of courses. Eventually we agreed that I should set up on my own, because I’d been doing quite well and bringing in business. So I started up Shepshed Optics in 1999 from my garage. I built a room in my garage, and it had a glazing machine and tracer, everything that you really needed, which I bought outright. After three or four years, there were staff cars on my drive all the time, lorries arriving with deliveries and reps calling round. It wasn’t tenable so we needed to find somewhere new. We’ve been at these premises for 16 years now.’