Yorkshire Laser eyes further growth

Left to right – John Ellis and Grahame Lunt of Finance Yorkshire with Matthew Orford of Yorkshire Laser & Fabrications

One of the UK’s leading sheet metal fabrication and laser companies plans to increase production and create additional jobs following investment from Finance Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Laser & Fabrications supplies its products and services to a range of sectors including telecoms, automotive, engineering, power generation and medical.

A Business Loan from Finance Yorkshire has enabled the business to invest in a new welding fume extraction system for its fabrication facilities in Castleford.

A family run business, Yorkshire Laser & Fabrications currently employs 35 people and has an annual turnover £3 million. Managing Director Matt Orford said: “We’ve had great support from Finance Yorkshire and this latest investment will make a big improvement to our fabrication department.

“We’re looking to grow our workforce by seven and want to increase our customers and grow sales and at the same time improve efficiency and profitability.”

Yorkshire Laser & Fabrications was established in 1991 by Matt’s father, Garnett who is now chairman. Finance Yorkshire has invested over the course of the last three years a total of £170,000 in the business which in addition to the extraction unit has assisted with the construction of a new industrial unit on their site.

Matt said: “We were chronically short of space and the new unit had a dramatic impact on our production capability. We now plan to build another 10,000 sq ft unit to house our laser cutting equipment.”

Finance Yorkshire Investment Manager Grahame Lunt said: “Strong management and leadership skills have seen Yorkshire Laser & Fabrication continue to grow and explore new markets. The new extraction equipment will create a cleaner working environment and enable improvements in productivity for this successful manufacturing business.”

To date Finance Yorkshire has invested £100m in SMEs in Yorkshire and the Humber. It has made 792 investments in businesses, increasing overall turnover by £360 million and creating and safeguarding over 11,000 jobs.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

The project is supported financially by the European Union and attracts investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, UK Government and the European Investment Bank. Finance Yorkshire is also supported by the Regional Growth Fund.

For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or call 0300 030 6060.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire