Land deal secures 140 jobs

MORE than 140 jobs will stay in Oldham following the council’s agreement to lease a strip of green land to a major local manufacturer.

Hill Panel Products, which supplies components for fitted bedroom and kitchen firms, has leased the quarter-acre, 10-metre-wide plot in Kings Road, opposite Alexandra Park, for £65,000.

The deal will allow Hills, which employs more than 140 people in Oldham, to expand. Without it, chairman Stephen Hill said the company would have had to move within the next two years.

Four or five new jobs could now be created. Mr Hill added: “We would have had to move, maybe out of the borough, if we wanted to expand because we have reached the limit of our site.

“Continual development and expansion has always been a key feature of our success and we are delighted to have been able to work with Oldham Council on this deal.”