Ifor Williams Trailers (www.iwt.co.uk) is spending £5 million to establish a new production line (at a site in Sandycroft, Flintshire) that will create extra capacity to build its ‘iconic’ livestock trailers (plus 55 jobs).

The company has four other manufacturing sites — at Cynwyd, Corwen, Ruthin and the Deeside Industrial Park.

As well as being sold through a network of 50 UK distributors, the company’s trailers are exported all over the world.

It has distributors as far afield as Australia and New Zealand, as well as in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the West Indies, Japan and Africa.

It is also the leading supplier of horseboxes to France, Germany and Belgium, with Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark being notable growth areas.

Gordon Burns, group head of human resources, said: “The new production line is being built to help assist with the drive to bring all our production facilities line with our world-class manufacturing standards.”

Jon Mould, group head of manufacturing operations, said: “In terms of the livestock trailers, we are at full capacity at our Cynwyd site, because there is just no more space there.

“The new production facility in Sandycroft will enable us to double the number of livestock trailers we make and ensure that our distributors — and more importantly our customers — get their trailers a lot more quickly after they order them.

“That said, we have plans to continue the refurbishment and upgrade of the Cynwyd site.”