A West Cumbrian timber firm is aiming to treble its production with a new facility.
Long-established family firm Jacksons Timber has three timber yards and a manufacturing site and received funding of £50,000 from Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership towards the total project costs of £100,000 to buy equipment for a new production facility at Lillyhall, near Workington.
They worked with a local engineering company to create handling equipment that helps staff move engineered timber products around the factory and into storage.
Daniel Mossop, director at Jacksons Timber Ltd, said: “Our timber business has grown substantially in recent years. We are currently developing a new production facility, to house cutting-edge machinery. This should treble our production capacity and improve our efficiency.
“The grant has allowed us to develop innovative custom designs for industrial trolleys and stands to help us move products safely and efficiently around the factory. This includes a stillage or metal pallet, which will help move a particularly heavy, and a high growth product called a spandrel panel through our factory safely.
“We believe that the bespoke stands, trolleys and pallets are key to the success of our engineered product line.”
The family-run business has branches at Whitehaven, Calderbridge and Barrow, and its dedicated engineering plant is based in Workington.
Jo Lappin, chief executive of Cumbria LEP, said: “It’s great to see businesses like Jacksons Timber using the Innovating for Success programme to support their ambitions. We launched Innovating for Success to help small and medium sized business across Cumbria to invest in innovation or decarbonisation projects.
“I am delighted that the grant that we have provided has encouraged Jacksons Timber to invest in the further growth of the business and to deliver an innovation that will make that growth easier and hopefully faster.”
