Prince of Wools lends his support in Bradford (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Prince Charles will visit next week to champion a plea supporting UK wool

8:20am Friday 19th November 2010 in Business By Chris Holland

The Prince of Wales is coming to Bradford next week in his role as the champion of wool farmers and processors.

Prince Charles, who rears sheep on his Gloucestershire estate, is patron of the Campaign for Wool, which is a five-year drive to bring wool back into fashion and drive up the price for farmers. He will meet farmers and representatives of the local wool textile industry at Bradford City Hall on Tuesday before going on to tour the Haworth Scouring plant in Birksland Street, Bradford.

Prince Charles was responsible for kick-starting the Campaign for Wool initiative which includes textile designers, processors and fashion industries working together to improve public awareness of the benefits of wool as a sustainable natural product.

Wool production involves lower carbon emissions than man-made fibres, is a natural insulation material and is naturally fire-retardant.

The combined efforts of the leading wool organisations, industry associations and the textile industry across the world has created a campaign to promote the properties of wool and help to support sheep farming as an industry and the textile community internationally.

Haworth Scouring and Combing companies are the largest operations of their type in the Northern Hemisphere.

They are owned by Cottingley-based Curtis Wool Direct Ltd, international wool merchants and processors, which trades wool around the world.

Haworth Scouring has the capacity to handle more than a million kilogrammes of wool a week, which means it can process the whole of the United Kingdom’s scouring requirements. The plant produces up to 700,000kgs of clean wool weekly. On the same site, Haworth Combing can further process the scoured wool and is the last plant of its kind left in the UK.

As part of his tour the Prince will see the site prepared for the firm’s new carding and combing plant.