Making things is in our DNA

Lancashire was the beating heart of the Industrial Revolution. Its cotton factories and magnates like Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, John Kay and James Hargreaves placed it as a world leader and a key symbol of modern industrialisation.

Today, we are still at the centre of it all with a strong history of engineering and manufacturing that employs 80,000. A home to global manufacturers, from aerospace giants to the world’s leading producers of specialist materials, Lancashire has the expertise to support international companies to grow. That knowledge, along with our unrivalled manufacturing and engineering heritage and a strong skill set have helped other industries – such as medical, power generation and automotive – flourish.

Leyland Trucks, a subsidiary of US owned PACCAR, is one of Europe’s most advanced truck assembly facilities and exports across the globe.

Companies like AGC Chemicals Europe and Victrex – the latter chose the county as their global headquarters – are based on the Fylde Coast’s Hillhouse Enterprise Zone. And in Pendle and Blackburn, where rubber and plastics manufacturing dominate, the latter represents a proportion of employment five times higher than the national average.

Our considerable heritage and tradition in textiles has boosted our international company portfolio with businesses that combine expertise with high tech innovation to manufacture technical textiles. We’re leading the pack with coatings and laminating, too, at Accrington’s Emerson & Renwick Technology Centre and we’re a powerful influence in paper and pulp. Blackburn employs 11 times more people in paper manufacturing that the national average.

With four outstanding universities on our patch – Lancaster University, UCLan, Edge Hill University, and the University of Cumbria – our strengths in engineering disciplines are boosted, as is our already established track record of working with businesses to support innovation and new product development. This support will be further enhanced by the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) set to open in 2019. UCLan is also investing over £30m in a new Engineering Innovation Centre in Preston, also due to open in 2019. It will incorporate state-of-the-art engineering facilities for research and training including specialist electronics labs and a flight simulator.