COUNCIL chiefs have pledged to help an expanding Radcliffe company ease its "growing pains."

They are working with flooring manufacturers James Halstead plc in a bid to identify a suitable site to allow the company to extend and to create up to 60 new jobs.

Last week, the Radcliffe Times disclosed that Halstead's were encountering difficulties in securing a new site to enable it to extend its warehousing and manufacturing operations.

Halstead's has no spare land at its Hollinhurst Road headquarters and is anxious to acquire between seven and ten acres of ground elsewhere in the town for its expansion.

Now, Bury Council is in talks with the company to help Halstead's achieve its goal.

Councillor Tim Chamberlain, executive member for regeneration and housing, said: "We want successful sustainable employers like James Halstead to stay in Bury. While we cannot turn around the general decline in manufacturing employment that has seen a succession of closures in traditional industry, it is important that we maintain the diversity of jobs in the borough.

"We are talking to James Halstead and they are absolutely committed to keeping their production base in Radcliffe at the current site".

He added: "However, they are looking for very specific new premises for warehousing purposes and officers from the councils economic development unit have been talking to the firm and handed them a list of possibilities".

Councillor Barry Briggs, chairman of Radcliffe area board, commented: "Re-inventing Radcliffe is really a vision for the re-development of Radcliffe town centre and while it does not address the needs of firms like James Halstead, the council is tackling such issues in other ways and have been identifying brown field sites which can be kept as employment land rather than turned over for housing or other uses.

"Our intention is to diversify, to rebuild the town centre around the regeneration drivers that we know will be successful and to ensure that there is a variety of quality employment available close to where people live".

A study by consultants King Sturge, commissioned by the council, identified the need to establish a property ladder in Bury to allow businesses to grow. But the size of warehouse needed by Halstead would not be accommodated by those ideas.

However, the council has identified a number of options which it is suggesting James Halstead can consider.