A MULTI-MILLION pound investment creating 50 new jobs and safeguarding hundreds more was unveiled today.

The Oswaldtwistle-based Hilden Group is extending its Britannia Mill site in Blackburn to increase weaving capacity.

A total of 48 high-speed looms will be installed in a new weaving shed at the mill. The extra capacity will be used to produce a variety of specialist fabrics including window blinds, furnishing fabrics and mattress tickings.

The new looms, which will increase Hilden's productivity by 45 per cent, will also manufacture the firm's famous damask tablecloths. The firm supplies customers including major airlines, top restaurants and hospitals and nursing homes both in the UK and throughout the world.

Today's announcement comes against a depressing backdrop of job losses and closures in East Lancashire's manufacturing industry.

The creation of 50 new jobs in the textile sector in particular is seen as a major boost to what has long been thought of as a dying industry. Hilden said the investment at the Didsbury Street site would also help safeguard the 500 jobs at its five mills in Oswaldtwistle, Accrington and Blackburn by enabling it to develop new products and expand into new markets. "This announcement emphasises how Hilden continues to grow confidently, investing in new technology, developing new products and creating new jobs," said Peter Hargreaves, chairman of the group which also owns the Oswaldtwistle Mills complex in the town.

The Lancashire Textile Manufacturers' Association, which represents most of the major employers in the industry locally, said the Hilden announcement was to be welcomed.

"The future of the industry is in new technology and with go- ahead firms like Hilden who are prepared to invest in it," said Stephen Walsh of the association.

"In this area there are quite a number of firms investing heavily such as James Thornber, James Dewhurst and Witton Mill and it is companies like that which will continue to do well."

Hilden is the largest independent textile group in the country. The Hargreaves family which owns it is descended from James Hargreaves who invested the Spinning Jenny in 1764.

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