190 jobs planned for former bath factory in Lidget Green

Halifax-based Italian Furniture Company is planning to create nearly 200 jobs at the site of the former Shires factory in Lidget Green, Bradford. 60 workers were made redundant when Shires closed in April, 2009.

If plans are approved the building would also house Tradex, a company dealing with clothes and footwear, and Slumbernights bed manufacturers. The three companies have the same director, who would like to see the companies operating under one roof.

The majority of the new workers would be recruited from the Great Horton area. The application to the Council reads: “With regard to loss of employment land this site has employed nobody for two years and the scheme will create about 190 jobs on the site.

“Sixty will be in manufacturing, 40 in the warehousing and distribution and 100 in retail employed in three shifts.

“More people will be employed in the retail use and in a much smaller floor area than in the other two uses.”

A birds eye view over the currently unoccupied factory in Lidget Green, Bradford.

Bradford: The UK's best Broadband City

Although UK broadband speeds continue to lag behind the best in the world with an average broadband connection speed of 4.3Mbps which places it 26th globally - things are steadily improving.

The average UK connection speed has risen by 16.2 per cent compared to a year ago when it stood at 3.7Mbps. It's also a 6.3 per cent improvement on the final quarter of 2010 and is well above the global average of 1.9Mbps. The figures come from Akamai's "The State of the Internet" report covering the fourth quarter of 2010. The web infrastructure provider gathers the data from its global webserver network.

Akamai has also ranked the top 100 cities in the world for average broadband speeds and only one UK city – Bradford – makes the list with average connection speed of 6.1 Mbps, which places the West Yorkshire city in 99th place.