Notts packaging firm on move after £500k grant helps relocation

A MANSFIELD packaging manufacturer is set to establish a new base in the town thanks to a £515,000 Grant for Business Investment from the East Midlands Development Agency (Emda).

Crown Speciality Packaging UK produces decorative light-metal packaging.

It employs 160 staff at its current site at Rock Valley, close to Mansfield's town centre.

The Grant for Business Investment [GBI] will help the company – part of multi-national Crown Holdings Inc – to relocate to new premises at Crown Farm Way in Mansfield, a modern industrial zone developed on the site of the former Crown Farm colliery.

It will be able to install a "palletisation" system at a site close to the Mansfield Ashfield relief road, which connects with the A1, A38 and M1.

Crown Speciality Packaging's existing, long-established site, based at Rock Valley in Mansfield, has evolved over many decades.

But the arrival of heavier press machinery and larger-scale manufacturing means that many areas of the site can no longer be used.

The result has been that the firm's production has been scattered, with raw materials and products having to be moved considerable distances from process to process.

The move to purpose-built, modern premises will help to sustain manufacturing at Crown Speciality Packaging UK in Mansfield and increase efficiency and market competitiveness in the long-term.

Speaking about the move to the new premises, the company's business operations director, David Harrison, said: "Relocating the business in the local area ensures we retain our core skills and workforce.

"Efficiency improvements will provide the foundation of a sustainable business to maximise the opportunities available to us in the years to come."

He said: "I would like to thank emda for its support in making the move a reality. The priority now is for us to provide a full and competitive service to all our metal packaging customers and fulfil our business commitments."

John O'Reilly, Emda's business support director, said: "I am delighted that we have been able to help Crown Speciality Packaging UK move to premises that will give the business the room it needs to develop and expand.

"The manufacture of metal tins for packaging is long established in Mansfield and we felt that it was vitally important to ensure the long-term viability of this business.

"With the move to purpose-built, modern premises, the company will be in a great position to continue to be successful and grow."

In addition to the site in Mansfield, Crown Speciality Packaging UK also operates across four other sites in the UK, at Aintree, Carlisle, Tyneside and Leicester.

GBI is the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' capital investment grant scheme aimed at encouraging businesses to invest in land, buildings, plant and machinery to support expansion and modernisation in England's more deprived areas.

The scheme is delivered in the East Midlands by Emda. In May last year, emda said it was providing an additional £9.5m to the scheme, with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) contributing a further £1.4m.

The funding will be made available to support businesses up until 2014.

The GBI is available to businesses from all parts of the region; however, the ERDF money has a particular focus on supporting projects from Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Lincoln, the towns of Corby, Chesterfield, Mansfield, and Boston and Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Bolsover and East Lindsey.

Projects that could, in future, potentially be supported by the ERDF funding, include business projects creating jobs.

richard.baker@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk