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Pilkington invests £40m in Northwest facilities
By Steve Hanlon | May 28, 2008
This press release reports that Pilkington is investing £40m in new facilities in St Helens. Great news locally, but the bit that jumped out for me was this paragraph:
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.
This is the sort of news that we should be shouting from the roof-tops. Pilkington’s technical centre in Lathom is a world leading research centre, and it’s on our doorstep. Research and development at the centre has led to a £40m investment in neighbouring St Helens. Yes, Pilks is now owned by Nippon Sheet Glass, but the lesson is that British R&D can lead to re-investment in Britain.
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