Intertek, a leading Total Quality Assurance provider, has welcomed Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham MP to Leigh last week to officially open the UK’s largest one-stop textile testing laboratory.

Intertek has extensively renovated and expanded the 30-year old site in Leigh, near Manchester, to incorporate under one roof the UK’s largest textile flammability laboratory, a new chemical laboratory, as well as upgraded textile testing capabilities.

New testing facility

The new one-stop testing facility supports UK international manufacturers and retailers with fast and efficient quality and performance assurance, testing, inspection, and certification services including flammability, fire analysis and chemical testing on a broad range of textile products. These include sportswear, protective clothing, fashion apparel, children’s clothes, shoes and footwear, curtains, duvets, pillows and sofa covers.

The new Centre of Excellence will enable Intertek to support the evolving needs of retail and textile industry customers significantly over the next few years, while maintaining employment in the Leigh area, including the introduction of an apprenticeship scheme, the company reports.

Access to facilities

Opening the site, Andy Burnham, MP for Leigh said: “I fully support what Intertek have done here. By creating a world class facility in Leigh, Intertek is bringing more businesses from across the world to the North West of England, helping to support local jobs and build business. I am proud to open this modern new facility which maintains a link with Leigh’s past in textiles.”

The British Retail Consortium emphasised the importance to UK retailers of having access to facilities that provide robust testing to ensure product quality and safety, stressing that both are of paramount importance to ensuring and maintaining a high level of consumer confidence.

Supporting UK customers

“As a FTSE 100 company headquartered in the UK, Intertek works closely with a huge range of manufacturers and retailers in the UK to provide high quality assurance, testing, inspection and certification expertise to optimise the quality and safety of their products right along the supply chain,” said Rob van Dorp, Chief Executive, UK & Eire, Intertek.

“This new Centre of Excellence will support our UK customers’ design and quality processes, enabling them to meet their customers’ quality and safety expectations and to protect their global brands.”

Intertek network of more than 1,000 laboratories and offices and over 40,000 people in more than 100 countries, delivers assurance, testing, inspection and certification solutions for its customers’ operations and supply chains.

www.intertek.com