Jobs have been saved in Bradford and more will be created at an expanding packaging company which had threatened to move away unless it could find a suitable local site for a new 100,000 sq ft factory.

After an 18-month search of more than 30 sites, Weidenhammer Packaging is investing £5m in a purpose-built manufacturing plant on a five acre site off Halifax Road, Buttershaw, for which planning permission has been approved.

The development will secure the jobs of 37 workers and the family-owned German-based group is also looking to increase its Bradford workforce by 25 per cent on the back of new orders and growing turnover.

The firm produces high volume composite cans for the food and tobacco industries and recently picked up new orders from Cadbury, United Biscuits and Japanese Tobacco International.

The development should be completed by mid to late 2011.

The German group’s chief executive Ralf Weidenhammer said that he wanted the UK business to reach £15m turnover by 2015 from its current level of around £8m.

He said: “We believe in the UK as a manufacturing country. Britain has a great history as an industrial country that has perhaps been a bit forgotten in the last 20 years.

“Britain is the motherland of the composite can, along with Switzerland. The market is there.”

Mike Ridgway, who recently retired as managing director after securing the firm’s base in Bradford, praised Bradford Council for helping to find a suitable site.

He said: “It took nearly 18 months to locate the site having looked at nearly 30 in and around Bradford.

“Bradford Council have been very supportive and we are all pleased this long established business can remain within the city.”

Mr Ridgway. has retired after 42 years with the business, originally part of the Field Group and later the Chesapeake Corporation, from which Weidenhammer rents production space at Lidget Green.

He said: “The new site will see an increase in employees as the business further develops and expands.

“Weidenhammer has ambitious plans to double its UK sales in the next five years.”

Weidenhammer moved into the UK in 2008 when it set up a joint venture with Chesapeake to run its speciality products site in Bradford. A new £2.5m production line has been installed that will allow the Bradford factory to produce a new type of composite can with a more secure lid.