Buckingham MP opens new facility for autonomous drone developer at Westcott
On 20 September, Greg Smith, MP for Buckingham, unveiled a new facility at Westcott for autonomous drone developer, Flare Bright. During the visit, Smith witnessed the company’s newly developed SnapShot drone technology, a micro-drone designed to capture instant aerial images in wind, adverse weather and constrained aerospace.
Aerospace company Flare Bright has recently won a UK MOD Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) follow-up contract. This project will deliver a fixed wing drone that can fly without GPS or any remote-control, when other drones are unflyable due to jamming and denial. This latest contract of £425,391 lasts for 13 months and follows on from the completion of an initial £226,500 contract that successfully concluded in April 2021.
The company has also been selected for the prestigious United States Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment (AEWE).
Starting with only four staff members, Flare Bright moved to Westcott last year on the back of a £226,000 Ministry of Defence contract; now the company employs 14 people with the new facility accommodating this growth.
Chris Daniels, Chief Commercial Officer at Flare Bright, commenting on the facility at Westcott, said: "As we further grow our workforce, it is perfectly placed to attract talent to work here."
Commenting on the formal opening of Flare Bright's new expanded facilities at Westcott, MP Greg Smith said: "Flare Bright is exactly the sort of company we want and need to support the Buckinghamshire economy: high-tech innovators who even through the pandemic have expanded their headcount, creating new jobs by three-times."
Jayne Cannell, Westcott Business Park Manager, said: "The company has taken a further 2,207 sq ft of fully refurbished space on the Park on a 5-year lease."
About Westcott Venture Park
Westcott Venture Park, owned by PATRIZIA Hanover Property Unit Trust, is a 650-acre business park, home to over 70 companies employing over 600 staff.
Westcott sits at the heart of a vibrant technology hub with easy access to Bicester, Thame and Aylesbury offering a range of industrial, warehouse and office space with units from 120 sq ft – 30,000 sq ft and design and build opportunities for buildings between 10,000 sq ft to 50,000 sq ft.
It is home to the Westcott Space Cluster and the National Space Propulsion Test Facility and a thriving nucleus of space companies and is recognised globally as an integral part of the UK Space sector growth strategy.
About Flare Bright
Flare Bright is an aerospace company developing autonomous drones. The company specialises in its UAS product: SnapShot technology – developed using artificial intelligence – is a fully autonomous system and will glide back to its user even without a GPS signal and in electromagnetically jammed environments.
