Treforest Industrial Estate was started in 1938 to help encourage employment in South Wales where coal mining and steel manufacturing were in decline.
This was the first government-assisted trading estate - an important new concept, and "the most hopeful and constructive idea to emerge" from these years. The first factory was occupied in 1938 and by the end of 1939 there were over 60 firms in production at Treforest, some run by Austrian and Czech refugees who had fled the totalitarian regimes on the continent. 2500 workers were employed at Treforest by September 1939 with new opportunities for male and female workers.
After the war, the trading estate scheme was much more actively developed and Treforest estate expanded.