In a major boost for UK manufacturing, a North West of England based textiles company is investing £5.8 million to bring cotton spinning back to its spiritual home in Greater Manchester. More than 100 new jobs will be created by the ambitious project, which will regenerate a former Victorian cotton mill and use cutting-edge technology to produce luxury yarn for domestic and global markets.

English Fine Cottons is investing £4.8 million of its own money in the project, £2 million of which is a loan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) through its investment fund. A further £1 million has been awarded as a grant by the N Brown RGF6 Textile Growth Programme (TGP).

Novel and unique

Stories about traditional textiles manufacturers moving from the production of textiles for fashion and apparel to more lucrative technical textiles markets are many. However, the establishment of English Fine Cottons is novel and perhaps unique in that the owner of the company Culimeta-Saveguard, is a well established manufacturer of technical textiles for automotive and protective clothing applications, which now sees an opportunity in manufacturing textiles for apparel.

English Fine Cottons will base its new production facility in the refurbished Tower Mill in Dukinfield in Tameside, Greater Manchester. The facility will be the UK’s only cotton-spinning company – reviving this iconic trade more than 30 years after the last cotton mills closed in the 1980s.

Most luxurious yarns in the world

The new mill will spin some of the most luxurious yarn in the world, using the finest raw materials from Barbados, India, the USA and Egypt. The yarn will be used in collections for the high-end fashion market in both woven fabrics and knits.

Andy Ogden, general manager of English Fine Cotton’s parent company Culimeta-Saveguard Ltd, said: “We are extremely proud to have won this major government grant today to help us make real our dream of bringing cotton spinning back to where it belongs – the North West of England.

“Today’s announcement is an important vote of confidence in UK manufacturing. It will create over 100 new jobs and will bring back to the UK an industry for which it was once renowned.”

“There is a strong demand across the world for luxury goods with the ‘Made in Britain’ stamp, and English Fine Cottons has the pedigree for the job. Our roots are in technical textile manufacturing and we are in the perfect location – able to draw on a local workforce with the necessary skills and expertise.”

Huge historical significance

Business Minister Anna Soubry said: “Greater Manchester has a long tradition of cotton spinning so I’m delighted that this project, backed by government money, is using cutting-edge technology to bring the textile industry into the 21st century and creating jobs. There is a global demand for premium fashion made in the UK and this new mill is all part of a textile revival boosting our manufacturing capabilities.”

CLLR Kieran Quinn is executive leader of Tameside Council and responsible for investment strategy and finance within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). He said: “The return of cotton spinning to Tameside is a matter of huge historical significance.

“For more than 100 years cotton was the key industry in the various towns making up the borough and indeed the North West of England. The Park Road area of Dukinfield, where Tower Mill is situated, is a corridor of former cotton mills and testament to the hold spinning once had on the region.”

“While I applaud the work done at national and regional level to bring English Fine Cottons to Tameside, I would also like to praise the efforts of Tameside Council and Culimeta-Saveguard, both of which have invested a vast amount of time and resources.”

“I believe this project shows how enterprising the people of Tameside are, and how effective a little northern grit and common sense can be in achieving successful solutions.”

Reshoring of textiles

The return of cotton spinning to Britain is part of a wider re-shoring trend in textile manufacturing, driven by a booming UK fashion industry. The TGP, which provides funding to textile manufacturing companies across England (excluding London), was set up to help UK companies take advantage of this opportunity.

Paul Short, Chairman of the N Brown TGP, said: “Culimeta, by their confidence to invest in establishing English Fine Cottons, is demonstrating exactly what we have found to be true in both of the N Brown Textile Regional Growth Funds. There is now a real genuine thirst to invest in UK textile manufacturing and our £1m grant to establish English Fine Cottons and bring back premium cotton manufacture to England helps to build another important brick into the UK textile supply chain. This will benefit the textile industry, employment and skills, all of which will ultimately boost the UK economy.”

Confidence to invest

Lorna Fitzsimons, Director of the N Brown TGP, said: “The global industry could never have predicted that cotton spinning would come back to the UK. Our programme is giving companies like English Fine Cottons the confidence to invest, and at a scale that makes it possible to build one of the most advanced cotton spinning plants in the world - in Greater Manchester. This success of the Alliance Project and the N Brown Textile Growth Programme is down to the amazing private sector collaboration that happens in Greater Manchester. Without the GMCA’s foresight and the partnership with industry and Government, none of this would have happened.”

The investment is said to be the realisation of the opportunities highlighted by the Alliance Report, which earlier this year predicted the creation of up to 20,000 jobs by the UK textile sector by 2020 – worth £9bn to the UK economy.

Historic moment

Simon Colbeck, Head of Innovation and Quality at Marks & Spencer, said: “M&S has long been a supporter of the Alliance Project’s work, as it paves the way for a revival of textiles in the UK. The return of cotton spinning to Greater Manchester is a historic moment and this milestone is a credit to the efforts of the Alliance Project and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.”

“However, there is still more to do, and across M&S our technical and fashion teams are lending their time and expertise to initiatives, such as the Textile Growth Fund, that look to promote innovation in UK textile manufacturing.”

British shirt-maker Emma Willis MBE, who makes the shirts for Daniel Craig’s James Bond, said: “We are almost vertical as a company and the only thing we don’t buy in the UK is cotton, which I would very much like to do. The project could hopefully utilise the abundant skills base for textile manufacturing in the UK, as we remain exceptional as a country in specialist manufacturing. From cotton spinning to pattern cutting – the skills are there to make in Britain.”

English Fine Cottons

English Fine Cottons is a trading arm of Culimeta-Saveguard Ltd, a manufacturer of engineering textiles based in Dukinfield in Tameside, Greater Manchester. Established over 20 years ago, Culimeta-Saveguard develops and manufactures technical textile products for a range of global markets. The company’s base is two adjoining former cotton mills in Dukinfield, on the banks of the River Tame.

Culimeta-Saveguard still operates the only remaining cotton system spinning plant in the UK, though it is today used to spin technical fibre yarns for the manufacture of protective clothing.

Culimeta-Saveguard has a pedigree of growth in this field. Its engineering textile products are market leading in the automotive and personal protective equipment sectors, with more than 85% going to export markets - It employs more than 230 people in the UK alone.

N Brown RGF6 Textile Growth Programme

The N Brown RGF6 Textiles Growth Programme is a national £97 million initiative, backed by £19.5 million from Round 6 of the Regional Growth Fund (RGF), which aims to support the national revival in textiles started by the first programme. It is led by an industry board chaired by N Brown, and including Marks & Spencer and other major British companies. 

The sector is demonstrating significant domestic growth, export and job generation potential. The programme has the following objectives:

• Create or safeguard over 2,000 jobs in the target areas of Greater Manchester, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire which contain the highest concentrations of clothing and home ware manufacturing in the UK.
• Bridge the gap between global retailers, domestic micro businesses and SMEs to strengthen local supply chains and promote sustainable growth.
• Continue to support sustainable and irreversible revival in the textiles sector by demonstrating how investment in workforce skills, design & innovation capacity and modern plant & machinery enables SMEs to capitalise on the opportunities for growth emanating from increased demand for UK textiles products.

Regional Growth Fund

The Regional Growth Fund (RGF) has supported eligible projects and programmes raising private sector investment to create economic growth and lasting employment. It has invested £2.7 billion to help businesses in England to grow; and is expected to create or safeguard over 580,000 jobs.

GMCA

GMCA stands for Greater Manchester Combined Authority and represents ten neighbouring local councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan). Around 2.7m live in Greater Manchester's 500 square miles. It has an economy bigger than Wales.

The ten councils have worked together voluntarily for many years on issues that affect everyone in the region, like transport, regeneration, and attracting investment. In 2011 the relationship was made official with the formation of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA).

The GMCA has formal powers and responsibilities set out in law. It has its own budget and employs staff to run the organisation and to work full-time on its objectives.

The GMCA offers loans at commercial rates to businesses and organisations to fund schemes that will boost local employment, improve people's skills and contribute to the region's economic growth.

Alliance Project

The Alliance Project, based at New Economy, was established to examine the potential for repatriating textiles manufacturing to the UK. The team led and delivered one of the largest pieces of research, with both industry and retailers, to understand the opportunities for growth in the UK’s textiles sector, and the barriers that would prevent the sector realising its true growth potential.

The work was commissioned by Lord David Alliance and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) with the support of The Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership and Government through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Further information

Culimeta-Savegaurd