A ENGINEERING firm from Whitchurch has moved premises thanks to a local building scheme.

Whitchurch-based Needham Laser Technologies Ltd relocating to a new unit on the Waymills Industrial Estate after receiving a grant of almost £70,000 from the original Marches Building Investment Grant (MBIG) programme.

A new £2.2 million MBIG scheme has now been launched, to help growing companies meet up to £150,000 of the cost of building new premises, or extending and reconfiguring their existing ones, to help them grow.

The scheme – part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and supported by the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership and Marches Growth Hub – is an extension of the hugely-successful MBIG programme which will have created 268 jobs by 2025.

Meanwhile, managing director of Needham Laser Technologies Ltd, Aled Ellis, said the grant helped the company make improvements to its new unit on Waymills Industrial Estate.

"We knew that the group's existing facility in Whitchurch was already nearing capacity but with the need to share a number of resources and create synergies across the entire group, it was important that we could stay within close proximity of the existing site," he said.

"We were, therefore, fortunate to find premises opposite our parent company's HQ and it is the group company that has purchased our new unit.

"However, as the new tenants and to best meet our specific requirements, we have needed to carry out a series of improvement works to the unit and the grant that we've received is making this possible."

Already, the expansion has resulted in five new full-time roles being created and with the firm continuing to grow, it is anticipated that further appointments across sales, warehousing and engineering will be made in the coming months.