A SKIPTON medical technologies business expects to create more than 60 jobs over the next three years as part of expansion plans which will see it move into a bespoke new headquarters.

Broughton Laboratories has used funding from the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to lay the foundations for its exciting future developments.

The company has ambitious plans and is set to move from its current site at the Broughton Business Park into premises more than four times the current size, also in Broughton.

The business is expecting to create more than 60 new jobs in the next three years, and has longer term aspirations of employing 120 and seeing turnover rise to £10m by 2021.

The company approached the LEP skills service for support for staff to undertake leadership and management training as well as 5S training, a workplace organisation method designed to improve efficiency, quality and employee safety.

The funding and support from the LEP has allowed the company to do two rounds of training meaning that more staff members were able to take the training and progress more quickly at the company.

Through the training, the company now has the foundations in place for accelerated growth.

Chris Allen, its managing director, said: “The continuous support that we’ve received from the LEP over the years has really helped us and these two training courses are another boost to help the business grow.We recently had an audit from the Food and Drug Administration and they were incredibly complimentary in how organised and successful we were and we put this down in part to the funding that the LEP has given us."

Mr Allen added: “We take a lot of our staff on straight out of university, so the training that we are receiving is helping these new starters to be trained in our way of thinking and our way of doing things. We can also identify any potential future leaders from these new recruits, and give them a real platform to grow, which in turn makes us as a company grow.”

Sharon Sunter, economic development manager at Craven District Council, which works with the LEP to support local businesses, said: “Broughton Laboratories have demonstrated how this funding can be of great benefit to local companies as they work to grow and thrive. We know there are other Craven businesses that could benefit from this funding and we would urge others to come forward and apply for grants to help up-skill their workforce.”

More than 5,000 training courses have been undertaken by employees across the Leeds City Region since February 2015 with support from the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Businesses have upskilled staff in everything from project management to welding qualifications with over £3m worth of training grants from the LEP’s skills service. Companies have also taken advantage of the wider support offered from the service including help with sourcing training provision and creating skills plans.

Stephanie Burras CBE, chairman of the LEP’s Employment and Skills Panel, said: “We’re delighted that we were able to contribute to Broughton Laboratories training and we’re equally delighted to hear that the training has been so successful that regulatory bodies are picking up on their new standards of organisation. We’re very excited to see where Broughton Laboratories are going, and it’s great to be a part of their anticipated to move to bigger and better offices. This in turn will create more jobs and bring more business to the region, which is really pleasing to see.”

The skills service is time limited and businesses are encouraged to contact Mark Delves on 01756 706214 or lwhitaker@cravendc.gov.uk to ensure they don't miss out on the support and funding.