David Cameron Officially Opens JSP's new Industrial Safety Helmet Manufacturing Line

Prime Minister David Cameron officially opened personal protection equipment specialist JSP's new state-of-the-art industrial safety helmet manufacturing facility in Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire.

JSP has invested more than £3m to create what the company says is the world's most advanced industrial safety helmet manufacturing line, which has a capacity of more than 4m helmets a year. JSP's new Evolution range of industrial safety helmets will be sold in over 90 countries around the globe. The new range provides the platform for growth over the next 5-10 years, as well as future expansion of the workforce, including the planned introduction of new apprenticeship and graduate trainee schemes in 2012.

The new line also sees the reintroduction of the BSI Kitemark scheme, and in conjunction with the British Standards Institution, the launch of a new risk-based approach to PPE selection across the relevant European (EN) standards.

Said the prime minister: “With our economy today, we desperately need to rebalance it in favour of high-tech manufacturing and exports like this. It is heartening to see that the expansion has been made here in Oxfordshire and not somewhere else in the world.

“With our motor industry expanding here in the UK also, 'Made in Britain' is a label we can be proud of.”

JSP chief executive Mark Johnstone explained that the new facility will enable the 47-year-old family company to improve service to customers by giving them exactly what they want. He said: “We will be able to reduce lead times, and be more flexible during periods of both high and low demand. We are in the process of patenting our new technology, and we can now manufacture helmets cheaper here in Oxfordshire than anywhere else in the world.”

JSP's in-house research and development team has developed a high-performing and comfortable range of industrial head protection, including the EvoLite, which, weighing only 285g, is the lightest on the market, and the Mk8 Evolution, which is the strongest industrial helmet in the world.