Since Slough Estates’ extraordinary beginnings we have been providing and managing property for businesses.

In 1920, two years after the end of the First World War, Sir Percival Perry, who later ran the British operations of the Ford Motor Company, and Sir Noel Mobbs, the grandfather of our current chairman, led a group of investors who acquired the 270 hectare (600 acre) site on the Bath Road in Slough.

"The Dump" as it was known, contained 17,000 used cars, trucks and motorcycles left over after the war. The idea was to refurbish them and sell them to meet the steadily growing public demand for vehicles.

The Dump also contained a great deal of what today we would call "workspace". 170,000 square metres (1.8 million sq ft) of covered workshops in fact. These would become surplus to requirements once the vehicles had been repaired and sold and could be leased to local businesses.

The idea of buying the vehicles and workshops with a view to meeting future demand was the result of exceptional foresight and business acumen. But no one could have known then just how extraordinary an investment what eventually came to be known as the Slough Trading Estate would turn out to be.

It is positioned not only on the edge of London, Europe’s largest and most vibrant commercial centre, but also close to the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It lies at the heart of the Thames Valley, one of the fastest business growth areas in the country and within a short distance of the London’s Heathrow Airport, the world’s busiest international air hub.

As that crucial infrastructure was built so the use, nature and character of the workspace on Slough Trading Estate was altered, upgraded, rebuilt and managed to meet new industrial and commercial needs. And providing and managing tailored workspace has remained our business since those very early days.

As the Slough Trading Estate developed it became a model for our future. Larger, more substantial buildings were erected. A power station was added to ensure that our properties had continuity of electricity supply. Shopping and banking facilities were added. Nowadays businesses occupy over 700,000 sq m (7.5 million sq ft) of commercial property at Slough that we own and manage.

Unlike many other property companies, which have chosen to contract out the management of their assets, we have always managed our properties ourselves. This has meant that we have remained closely in touch with our customers’ changing needs.

Over 43% of the properties Slough Estates’ lets each year is taken by existing customers. As their businesses have grown and evolved and their requirements have altered, we have built new buildings to meet their needs.

Today Slough Estates owns commercial and industrial properties in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, USA and Canada. Among the sites we have recently acquired in the UK are those located in Bristol, Cambridge and Southampton. And we have also begun one of the biggest developments in our history at the Ministry of Defence site at Farnborough, a few miles away from where we started at Slough.

Yet as we embark upon the new century and develop our portfolio of properties we are still in the same business as we were more than 80 years ago. We know and understand commercial property. And just as Slough Estates began with a partnership between business leaders of their day, so we still configure and manage our workspaces in partnership with our customers. They rely on us to supply suitable, flexible and well-managed workspace and we learn from them what to build and how to manage our properties to meet their needs.

We started out, at the beginning of the twentieth century, providing and managing the space to repair and sell army surplus vehicles. At the beginning of the twenty-first we are providing intelligent buildings and flexible workspaces to accommodate both new technology enterprises and traditional businesses. It has been quite an adventure. And we look forward to continuing to change and evolve to meet our customers’ requirements as we go forward – just as we have always done.