Move is a bold statement

S TATE-of-the-art office facilities have been proposed for Jotun Paints' Flixborough manufacturing plant as it looks at nearly doubling the planned investment in North Lincolnshire in the next two years.

As previously reported, capacity is being expanded to take on production that is being moved to the UK from Norway in a £3.5 million project, and now a new administration base has been drawn up.

Current facilities are split across the site, and a £3 million plan has been devised, that could be put before planners before the end of the year.

Managing director of Jotun UK Richard Chapman said: "It shows confidence in where we are and where we are going, and a real commitment to the people – we have the best people here.

"We are becoming more successful, and I think it will be a real improvement. The quality of space you have to work in is important. It can lift spirits. Great people here work very well together and what this will do is combine everyone in the same place, with a communication benefit. Everything will flow better."

Plans for the 1,050 sq m project could be submitted to the local authority later this year. Mr Chapman said: "It would be a positive investment in Scunthorpe, we could be bringing in £6.5 million in the next two years."

A total of 140 people are employed at the Flixborough plant, with 200 across the whole of the UK and more soon to be recruited. Mr Chapman said: "We haven't finalised numbers yet, but we will need some more people."

The manufacturing expansion will see new plant brought in as the site takes over the production of a protective base layer for steel work.

It involves specialised equipment as an extra process is needed, compared with other products that are either dissolved or mixed together in the large vats, with more than 1,000 different raw materials used in the large portfolio of products for protection in heavy industry, marine or construction.

Mr Chapman said: "The initial investment will start in the back end of this year. It is all approved and we are doing total costings now on the additional plant to expand capacity. We are on target, and we hope to be finished by mid-2011."

Proud of the role the firm is playing in the global structure, with a large percentage of product exported, he said: "To keep manufacturing in the UK alive we need high-value products, and to make such products very efficiently.

"Through continuous improvement we are striving for those efficiencies and we measure costs within that.

"We will never compete with labour costs in places such as China, but if we keep what we do in proportion, we will always have a strong European facility."