Cotton spinning to return to Greater Manchester

Cotton spinning is set to return to Greater Manchester following a 5.8 million pound investment from a North West-based textiles company.

English Fine Cottons is investing 4.8 million pounds of its own money in the project, 2 million pounds of which is a loan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority through its investment fund. A further 1 million pounds has been awarded as a grant by the N Brown RGF6 Textile Growth Programme.

The investment will allow English Fine Cotton to renovate the Grade II listed Tower Mill, which last produced cotton in 1955, and will allow the brand to produce luxury yarn for domestic and global markets. The move will make it the UK’s only cotton-spinning company, reviving the trade more than 30 years after the last cotton mills closed in the 1980s, following requests for British cotton.

The new mill in Dukinfield in Tameside, Greater Manchester will spin some of the most luxurious yarn in the world, using the finest raw materials from Barbados, India, the USA and Egypt. The yarn will be used in collections for the high-end fashion market.

Andy Ogden, general manager of English Fine Cotton’s parent company Culimeta-Saveguard Ltd, said: “We are extremely proud to have won this major government grant today to help us make real our dream of bringing cotton spinning back to where it belongs – the North West of England.

“There is a strong demand across the world for luxury goods with the ‘Made in Britain’ stamp, and English Fine Cottons has the pedigree for the job. Our roots are in technical textile manufacturing and we are in the perfect location – able to draw on a local workforce with the necessary skills and expertise.”

The new investment is set to create more than 100 new jobs.

The return of cotton spinning to Britain is part of a wider re-shoring trend in textile manufacturing to capitalise on the booming UK fashion industry and the ‘Made in Britain’ tag. The Textile Growth Programme provides funding to textile manufacturing companies across England (excluding London) to help UK companies take advantage of this opportunity.