Pilkington invests £40m in Northwest facilities

Glass-maker Pilkington is to invest £40m in one of its St Helens sites. The investment will enable the facility to use the latest advanced manufacturing technology to produce a range of innovative new glass products.

Plans submitted to St Helens Council include a new £15m coating plant and a further £22m to be invested in upgrading a float line which melts 250,000 tonnes of glass each year.

The coating facility will produce Activ self cleaning glass. It will use nanotechnology developed down the road at the company's European Technical Centre at Lathom, near Ormskirk, to produce coated glass for the solar cell and thermal installation markets.

The company also recently invested £7m at a third site in the town to produce low iron glass for solar panels and photo-voltaic cells to convert light into electricity.

The new investment, which is supported by a £3m grant from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, was secured with the assistance of The Mersey Partnership (TMP), Northwest Regional Development Agency and St Helens Council.

Pilkington's operations director, Ron Hamilton, said: "This has been an excellent example of the public sector working in partnership with a private company. This makes sure St Helens and the Northwest is in a position to grow with emergent technologies."