Lucite International plans (subject to planning approval) to build a new Research and Development centre at its Orchard Mill site in Darwen.
The centre will support the Perspex® and Lucite® acrylic sheet, and Lucite® acrylic composites businesses based in Darwen. Through sale of a portion of the site the company will fund this and support other projects currently being undertaken.
The centre will house Research and Development and Technical Service facilities for both the sheet and composites products. These include n
ew product developments where the intention is to continue to launch new and innovative products following up, for example, the recent launch of the Perspex® Spectrum range of products. Customer support will be enhanced by the inclusion of latest sheet fabrication equipment to help mirror processes used by customers.
Darwen today represents the largest Cell Cast Acrylic sheet operation in the world. The operation has 3 Cell Cast Acrylic sheet production lines, an Acrylic composites dispersion production plant and a Sheet cutting and Distribution Centre. The site is on 3 locations. The largest entity is Orchard Mill, containing 2 Cast production lines and the Acrylic Composites plant. Chapels Park with one Cast sheet production line and Walker Park, the storage cutting and distribution centre.
A new steam raising facility has recently been commissioned at Chapels Park which will improve the energy efficiency of the site. An expansion of sheet production facilities is also currently under construction at Orchard Mill, and was the subject of a recent RGF grant award.
Lucite International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Rayon Corporation of Japan. The company is totally committed to the continued development of the Darwen site businesses as demonstrated by the sanction of a number of significant projects in the past 12 months.
