MOTOROLA has thrown open its doors to celebrate the move to its new home at the Trilogy building in Kembrey Park.

And while Motorola Networks, which is part of the Swindon operation, is in talks with Nokia Siemens Networks, the future of Kembrey has been assured.

Yesterday more than 1,000 people went to the open day, including their neighbours at Kembrey including other major companies like Intel and Nationwide.

The new premises is a two-storey building of 74,000sq ft - the equivalent of almost two football pitches.

It was once the old Mape building, where Lucent Technology were based.

Motorola is leasing the building from Highcross, which owns Kembrey business park and has spent millions of pounds modernising it.

There is now no manufacturing in Swindon, but research and development plus testing continues.

The fact that the company stayed has pleased local business leaders, as there had been fears that Motorola might leave the town.

“This was extremely good news for Swindon,” said Paul Briggs, chief executive of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce.

“A lot of hard work was done by a lot of people to keep Motorola in Swindon because they could have chosen to go elsewhere.

“The decision means that we have 500 jobs guaranteed for the foreseeable future, plus 100 new jobs from Vygon.”

Motorola’s 500 staff are down from the 1,800 it had when its factory was opened 12 years ago by the Queen.

The move to the new building marks the end of an era, but something of a return home because Motorola operated from the same building on the site almost 10 years ago.

Earlier in the year the company confirmed it would be staying in the town with its 500-strong workforce and there would be no redundancies following the sale of its building to pharmaceutical firm Vygon UK Limited of Cirencester.

Vygon, which will bring 100 jobs, to the town has started work on the Thamesdown Drive site and the business will be fully operational from next year.

In July, Nokia Siemens Networks and Motorola jointly announced that the companies entered into an agreement under which Nokia Siemens Networks will acquire most of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure assets for $1.2bn (£759m).

The companies expect to complete closing activities by the end of 2010, subject to iregulatory approvals.

Vygon is part of an international company specialising in medical apparatus and equipment, which has grown significantly over the last 30 years.

The company has planning permission from the council for part demolition and extension of the existing building at Thamesdown Drive..

Vygon will retain part of the existing facility and construct a new warehouse facility totalling approximately 250,000 sq ft.