Business owners Jerry and Shelley Lawson say their children’s bicycle Frog Bikes is ready to shift gear at its new Mamhilad Park Estate premises. We asked Shelley what the future holds for their burgeoning bikes business.

Why has Frog Bikes chosen Mamhilad Park Estate for its new factory location?

We needed a large amount of space which was well-positioned for attracting staff and with good transport links for the courier network. It was also in an area which attracted development support from the Welsh Government.

Was the chance to just move in to available space and start-up a strong deciding factor? 

We did look at spaces in the region which would have been ready immediately for us to move into, but they weren’t sufficiently large for our requirements, nor had additional space for our future growth plans.

Was the on-site cafe, gym and creche and parkland setting a help in making your decision? 

It’s a benefit to our staff that there are other businesses and services available on site, and we were attracted by the community of other small and fast-growing businesses that share the Mamhilad site.

What effect did the availability of wonderful bicycling countryside right on your doorstep have on helping you to make a decision about your new location? 

There are so many wonderful cycling initiatives and events in the region, ranging from scenic cycling routes and challenging MTB trails right up to the GB Cycling Team training in Newport prior to Rio, and of course the Tour of Britain which is due to pass right by our door on September 8, so cycling is big news in South Wales. We hope that the great network of cycle routes will encourage some of our staff to cycle to work.

What skills do you need for the jobs being created are they available locally? 

We have been very pleased by the calibre of candidates we’ve recruited locally, supported by Torfaen council who have helped us attract great people. Initially we have recruited very experienced operators for our assembly line and within the management team to get us started.

Are you planning to train up local people and take on apprentices? 

All of our recruits have been local, and yes in future years we will have the capacity as we grow a little bigger to include apprentices alongside our more experienced teams.

Will you be including a Welsh 'flavour' in any future designs for your bikes? 

Our bikes are made for a global market, and we don’t tailor them for specific regions – however, we did launch a Union Jack design this summer to coincide with the Rio games, and this has proved surprisingly popular around Europe, not just within the UK. We’ve even sold a few in France! We are working hard to source our packaging and some of the bikes’ componentry locally, to support Welsh businesses and to reduce the carbon emissions from long-distance freight.

Will you, for example, be working with the University of South Wales/Coleg Gwent, in creating the design for any future bikes? 

We are aware of a lot of strong design initiatives in South Wales and hope to be able to work with them in future. We are currently strengthening our in-house R&D team because product design and innovation is one of the things that makes our bikes so special, so we would love to be able to work with some of the cutting edge teams in Wales now that we are established locally.

How many people do you expect to be employing once established? 

Within the first five years, we hope to have 50 people working in our factory.

How much do the bikes retail for and will they be, available locally? 

The smallest Frog is our 'Tadpole' balance bike for two-to-three-year-olds and this retails at £100. At the top end, our 26in road bikes for 11-14 year olds costs £450. Our bikes are sold through more than 900 independent bike stores worldwide, and in South Wales we have several stockists: Damian Harris, in Cardiff, Gateway Cycles, in Abergavenny and Ride Bike, in Talbot Green.