A SMALL East Lancashire firm is celebrating the part it has played in a ground-breaking scientific experiment.

Bosses at Accrington-based Hawks Electronics are delighted that the ‘Big Bang experiment’ – investigating how the world was created - has had a breakthough discovery.

Alicja Kay, 60, from Hapton, who owns the company in Malt Street, said she was ‘very proud’ to be an ongoing part of the prestigious project.

The company provided circuit boards and cables used in the Large Hadron Collider – the international research project based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Yesterday scientists claimed the discovery of a new ‘God particle’ which has been the subject of a 45-year hunt to explain how matter attains its mass.

Mrs Kay said: “We are extremely proud and I hope that as time goes on they can discover more things.

“Not only are the scientists looking at space, they are looking at furthering medical research – which will impact the quality of all our lives. We are very proud to be involved in the project.”

The circuit boards produced by the company form part of the machine that captures the debris of the particles from the collisions ready for analysis.

Mrs Kay and her team have now been selected to help develop a new generation of circuit board, in partnership with the University of Liverpool, which will replace the ageing parts.

The electronics are currently in the prototype stage. She said she is in regular contact with the heads of the experiment and last year she spent three days touring the Geneva facility.

“One of the most amazing things was seeing how much our company have contributed to the project. Around 80 per cent of the circuit boards are made by our company.

“We’re just a small company in Accrington and we keep pretty low profile but we have a very exciting customer base and a very skilled work force.

"There are many companies that participate in this project from 26 different countries and it’s lovely to see such positive results.”

She said the company took on an additional eight staff recently – bringing the workforce to 62.