There exists in Britain a not for profit govenrment backed organisation called the Alliance Project whose purpose in life was to examine the potential to repatriat textile manufacturing in the UK. What they discovered is that post recession growth is coming from UK micro-companies, our foreign competitors are no longer competitive and UK retailers were once again looking a home grown supply chain. On the back of the Alliance Project report, the N Brown Group PLC based in Manchester set up the N Brown National Textiles Growth Programme. With the support of the likes of M&S, the Department for Business and Skills and the not for profit Manchester Growth Company, the aim is return the Textiles Industry to its birthplace in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. Funded by the govenrment regional growth fund, in four years the Programme has invested £9 million in grants to 94 companies including the one below which warmed the cockles of my heart.
Cotton spinning returns to Greater Manchester thanks to £5.8m investment
ByShelina Begum 2 DEC 2015
A north west-based textiles company is investing £5.8m to bring cotton spinning back to its spiritual home in Greater Manchester.
More than 100 new jobs will be created by the project, which will regenerate a former Victorian cotton mill and use cutting-edge technology to produce luxury yarn for domestic and global markets.
English Fine Cottons is investing £4.8m of its own money in the project, £2m of which is a loan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) through its investment fund. A further £1m has been awarded as a grant by the N Brown RGF6 Textile Growth Programme (TGP).
The company has already placed orders for key equipment and begun recruiting staff with a view to re-starting cotton spinning in the UK mid-2016.
English Fine Cottons will base its new production facility in the refurbished Tower Mill in Dukinfield in Tameside, Greater Manchester. The facility will be the UK’s only cotton-spinning company – reviving this iconic trade more than 30 years after the last cotton mills closed in the 1980s.
The new mill will spin some of the most luxurious yarn in the world, using the finest raw materials from Barbados, India, the USA and Egypt. The yarn will be used in collections for the high-end fashion market.
Source: Manchester Evening News
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