The Sunday Times names the richest person in the South West

Sir James Dyson and family remain the richest people in the South West despite a £2.2billion drop. The figures are revealed in this year’s edition of The Sunday Times Rich List, which is published this weekend.

The list reveals the biggest drop in the number of billionaires in the guide’s 36-year history, from a peak of 177 in 2022 to 165 this year. This year’s list of 350 individuals and families together own a combined fortune of £795.361bn – an amount greater than the annual GDP of Poland.

Sir Elton John, Lord Lloyd-Webber and David and Victoria Beckham all feature in the annual survey. The minimum entry for the 350 list this year is £350m.

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Britain’s best-known inventor Sir James, who has just launched a £600 electric mop, remains the richest person in the South West with a fortune of £20.8 billion. Sir James, who is based in Malmesbury in Wiltshire, was named Britain’s fifth-richest person in the 2023 list, and in 2022 was second-richest behind London-based brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja.

He was born in Norfolk in 1947 and studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He then went on to work in Bath to help create a flat-bottomed fiberglass landing craft called the ‘Sea Truck’ .

He later produced the Ballbarrow in 1974 – a wheelbarrow-shaped plastic basket that moved by rolling on a ball. A few years later, after noticing the industrial dust extractor in his factory, he thought of reducing it to a household product.

The inventor and entrepreneur sold a product known as the G-Force to Japan, where it became a commercial success and won a design award in 1991. He then opened a factory in Wiltshire in 1993 and his Dual Cyclone product became the best selling vacuum cleaner. within two years.

He then began designing his concept using only cardboard and duct tape – an idea that eventually emerged in the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Dyson products were manufactured in Wiltshire until 2002 before moving to Malaysia. The company also produced hair dryers, fans and lights and has 14,000 employees worldwide in over 80 countries.

In May, the firm unveiled plans for a £100m technology center at George’s Square in Redcliffe, where it will develop a 10-year product range of gadgets and apps. The company’s UK and Ireland online sales and commercial teams will also be based at the new Bristol office as part of the proposals.

The owners of The Range, Chris and Sarah Dawson are the second richest people in the South West. They also climbed 15 places on the Rich List as their wealth increased by £475 million to £2.5 billion. The businessman turned retail tycoon paid his wife Sarah a dividend of £141m this year.

Elsewhere in the South West, Peter Hargreaves of Hargreaves Lansdown is third with £1.843bn, down £22m, Sir David McMurtry of Wotton-under-Edge engineering firm Renishaw is fourth, up £128m to £1.252bn and Steve Lansdown also of Hargreaves Lansdown is fifth, down £11m to £1.168bn.

Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: “This year’s Sunday Times Rich List suggests that Britain’s billionaire boom is over. Many of our homegrown entrepreneurs have seen their fortunes decline and some of the global super rich who came here are moving out.

“Thousands of British livelihoods rely to some extent on the super-rich. We will have to wait and see if we have now reached peak billionaire and what that means for our economy.

“This year’s new entries include people who have made money from artificial intelligence and virtual worlds, as well as sanitary materials and teaching aids.”