AN £800,000 investment has been announced at a mill to bring back a weaving process lost to cheaper overseas factories a decade ago.

Smith & Nephew is installing state-of-the-art weaving equipment for its medical fabrics division based at Brierfield.

The new machines will produce gauze which will be used to manufacture plaster of Paris for other Smith & Nephew companies across the world.

About ten years ago production of gauze was transferred out of the UK to India, Asia and other parts of Europe where it was cheaper to produce.

"It is a real measure of the skills and commitment demonstrated by our employees that gauze weaving has now returned to Brierfield," said Darrell Jenkins, managing director of Smith & Nephew Medical Fabrics. "They made the real difference!"

Technical staff at the mill, which employs more than 600 people, have been working for some time on ways of weaving the high quality gauze cost effectively. The £800,000 investment at Brierfield will see 14 new machines capable of producing 7.5 million metres of fabric a year.

The announcement came today as the division's parent company blamed the strong pound and cuts in European health budgets for a a fall in profits.

The group made a taxable profit of £81.1 million in the six months to June 30 compared with £91.9 million it made in 1996.

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