Greenfield Mill goes greener
Published Monday 16th March 09
A Colne furniture business is making a real difference to the environment after receiving a grant from Pendle Council.
Simpsons of Greenfield Mill pride themselves on being good to the environment and their latest project adds to their green credentials.
The Council gave brothers Philip and Steven Simpson a grant from the Single Regeneration Budget Business Support Initiative to help their bespoke kitchen and bedroom furniture business.
Steven explained: "Creating beautiful bespoke furniture from the finest quality timber from managed forests still creates a lot of sawdust.
"Even though our old extraction systems complied with all regulations, we still felt we could do more."
Councillor Allan Buck, who represents Economic Development in Pendle, said:
"The Economic Development team were happy to recommend Philip and Steven to the Business Support Initiative Grant Panel.
"They were awarded a grant to buy new sanding benches, linked to a new extraction system which then compresses the sawdust into briquettes.
"These briquettes burn very efficiently on wood-burning and multi-fuel stoves."
Councillor Buck will officially inspect the new extraction infrastructure at 1pm on Tuesday 17th March 2009 .
Philip added: "The difference this has made to the workshop environment is terrific.
"We generate more briquettes than we need to heat our workshop and showroom, so we're now selling the surplus briquettes.
"At the moment this is just to individuals, but when we have built up a reasonable quantity we hope to find a commercial buyer.
"We're also making a donation to the charity Alzheimer's Society, for every bag sold."
To find out how Pendle Council could help support your business, contact the Economic Development team on (01282) 661688 or business.support@pendle.gov.uk
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