Romag able to re-hire staff laid off last month

Mar 5 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

AN innovative North East glass company is investing £1m in new products and facilities and has begun to re-hire some of the 60 staff it temporarily laid off last month.

Lyn Miles, chief executive of County Durham company Romag, believes its new PowerPark, a car park canopy which generates solar power to charge electric vehicles or feed into the National Grid, will begin making significant contributions to sales by the end of this year.

Stock market-listed Romag also unveiled plans for a new training centre at its headquarters with hopes that the facility can help the North East develop into a hub for the solar industry.

Last month it temporarily laid off 60 of its 240 workers, but has already brought some of these back to work as the company begins to see signs that more orders are coming in.

Ms Miles said: “We are extremely excited about the new product and training centre and are positive about the benefits they will present for the future of UK manufacturing and climate change, particularly in the North East.

“Both the PowerPark and the training centre are being developed to ensure that the infrastructure and expertise is in place to allow UK companies to readily respond to the potential increase in demand for solar powered microgeneration within the UK market which will be accelerated by the feed-in tariff.”