A WORLD-beating Keighley firm is expecting to grow following the launch of its new premises in Steeton.

Mainstream Measurements Ltd specialises in meters to measure open channel flow and exports its products to Europe, Australia, Japan, and North and South America.

A core staff of eight at the newly-opened Mainstream House in Elmsley Street makes the renowned

Flowmeter product range, outsourcing work across the north of England.

One of its employees, Sean Howson, recently won the Future Innovator award at the KTP Best of the Best Awards.

Mainstream owner Beverley Bruce said the new premises would enable the company to expand its workforce, and provide test facilities with the certification required by customers.

She said: “We were previously in leased premises that were very rundown, cold, damp, and a very unappealing place to show customers when you were trying to convince them of your ability and capacity.

“We had outgrown our ‘factory in a shed’ to one where we could convince customers of our competencies to deliver. We are 98% export and so most of customers came from overseas to visit.”

Mainstream’s top-selling Flowmeter product range grew out of the research and development company Chroma Developments, founded by Dr Roger Fell.

Following a long career in signal processing and control measurement, he launched the Mainstream AV-flowmeter, regarded as one of the most accurate and reliable devices of its kind, in the early 1990s.

In 2011 the company was bought out and became Mainstream Measurements Ltd, and is now concerned with research, development and design of instrumentation with a heavy emphasis on embedded micro-processors.

Beverley said Mainstream continued to focus on building an inclusive and diverse workforce.

She added: “Mainstream is a member of the Howarth Foundation’s Business Building Futures initiative which supports the homeless or recently re-housed, back into training and employment.

“We are also a member of Made in Yorkshire which unites industry in Yorkshire, and affords us the opportunity to participate in regular workshops around the themes of diversity in the workplace and mental health first aid.”

Mainstream House was opened this month by businessman and philanthropist Dr Keith Howard OBE, founder of publishing company Emerald.

After graduating in mining engineering and working with the Anglo American Corporation in South Africa, he returned to England and became a mining manager with the National Coal Board.

His interest in academic matters took him to the University of Bradford School of Management, and the five years he directed the most successful doctoral programme in management science in Western Europe.

Resigning from Bradford University in 1983, he has been involved with Emerald ever since. He is also chairman of Opera North and has been a trustee of Life Education Bradford for almost 20 years.