17
BAROMETER
▲ Blackburn-based refrigeration specialist Forest Group Holdings has been acquired in a deal worth potentially £7m by facilities management and service provider Mitie. Multi award-winning business Forest Group is widely respected for critical refrigeration maintenance across hospitality and related sectors, with operations spanning the North of England, Midlands, Wales and Scotland.
▲ Property developer The Prime Group has sold a 55,412sq ft industrial unit at Prime Point in Blackburn to vaping business Totally Wicked. The multi-million pound investment by Totally Wicked Group will mean the opening of a cutting-edge fulfilment and distribution centre and is part of the vaping business’ ongoing commitment to investing for sustained growth and innovation.
▲ Leading manufacturer of re-usable plastic storage boxes and housewares What More UK has announced the completion and opening of a new 80,000 sq ft facility at its production site in Altham. It marks another major milestone in the company’s continued expansion.
▲ Lancaster-based ICS Accounting (below) has won a major industry award for the second year running. It picked up the ‘Best Contractors Accountancy’ category at The Contracting Awards 2025.
Miranda Barker OBE Chief executive, East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce
@elancschamber
FIRMS FEEL THE GROWING STRAIN
OF RED TAPE GDP growth for 2026 is predicted to be a meagre 1.2 per cent and business investment is set to increase by an almost non-existent 0.9 per cent.
The economy, as the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said, is stuck in low gear.
Pressure has been heaped upon pressure for firms small and large, rationalisations have been carried out – losing many hundreds of jobs locally, and the government refuses to realise that only by co-investing with business, or at least by stopping laying on mounting pressures, can the brakes be taken off economic growth.
Vicky Pryce, chair of the BCC Economic Advisory Council, said: “Businesses will be steering through choppy waters once again in 2026 after a Budget that lacked the growth measures so desperately needed”.
Government seems to have forgotten that economic balance is a delicate thing to be nourished and finessed. By turning the thumbscrews too tight business cannot play its part in providing good jobs, stable jobs, entry level jobs at Christmas for all our youngsters, living wage jobs for all – these are not Governmental ambitions alone.
▲ Motorpoint Burnley is celebrating its 25th anniversary. More than 160,000 cars have been sold at the site since it opened.
DOWN
▼ Following reports in December that the Defence Investment Plan has been delayed due to spending concerns from Number 10, the Unite union is demanding that the Prime Minister delivers on his promise that increased defence spending will benefit UK workers.
Unite has concerns over jobs associated with the new Typhoon aircraft for the RAF, an order for medium lift helicopters, the purchase of military transporter planes and the UK’s military satellite programme. Contracts in all areas are understood to be reliant on the decisions made in the ministry of defence’s, Defence Investment Plan.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Far too many defence workers are looking over their shoulders wondering
where the next order will come from while the government sits on its hands. This uncertainty must end.”
▼ A family-run east Lancashire haulage business that can trace its roots back almost half a century has gone into administration with the loss of 13 jobs. Earl Transport called in the administrators after facing increasing financial pressures driven by rising operating costs and the wider economic challenges affecting the sector.
▼ Latest insolvency figures highlight a concerning upward trend in struggling companies, according to the North West branch of the UK’s restructuring, turnaround and insolvency trade body R3. The group’s regional chair Fran Henshaw said: “The economic pressure remains considerable.”
LANCASHIREBUSINES SV
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Good businesses want to provide long term stable jobs – with proper protections – for all their workforces. But if they are afraid to hire because of swingeing employment laws, or unable to hire due to multiple pressures per role of increased NI, minimum wage, and so on, employment prospects are depressed.
Only by investing and building regulations and tax regimes in partnership with business can government stimulate fresh economic growth to fill the coffers and allow for the NHS and infrastructure investments we so desperately need.
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