SAFETY training company Falck Nutec UK is investing £550,000 to expand its Billingham base and further grow sales after an increase of more than 20% last year.

The Billingham business saw revenues increase from £12.3m to £15m in 2010 as offshore workers stepped up training spurred by industry disasters like the Deepwater Horizon incident, which killed 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

And now the Danish-owned firm has launched a brand new £550,000 industrial training facility extension to its Teesside centre, one of 26 training centres the company owns at its 35 sites worldwide.

Falck Nutec UK, which employs around 100 staff in Teesside and its smaller site in Aberdeen, is seeing more people come to its training centre from across the UK and further afield to sign up for courses on the growing wind turbine industry.

And the expansion features a 23.7m tall wind turbine tower and an external boat transfer simulator for a range of realistic offshore wind training courses, alongside a 72m square rigging and workshop area.

The additions to the existing centre will mean that it will be one of the most comprehensive offshore wind health and safety training bases in the whole country, for both pool-based survival training and outdoor practical training.