An expanding laundry company is opening a new £600,000 facility at its historic Great Yarmouth baseRichard Ellis the chairman of EEDA (East of England Development Agency) was yesterday due to open the new processing facilities at Camplings Linen Services, in Southtown.

An expanding laundry company is opening a new £600,000 facility at its historic Great Yarmouth base

Richard Ellis the chairman of EEDA (East of England Development Agency) was yesterday due to open the new processing facilities at Camplings Linen Services, in Southtown.

Camplings, a well established local business has been offering laundry and linen services to the region since the turn of the last century when the original Mr Camplings, a former mayor of Great Yarmouth, founded the company.

The new laundry facility capable of processing 100,000 towels per week is to be named The Kerrison Building after the Kerrison family who, for two generations ran and grew the business.

Guy Turvill, the current managing director, whose family bought the business from Peter Kerrison in 2004, said he was keen to retain the sense of community and continuity.

He added: “When we were trying to decide on a name for our new facility, it occurred to us how important the history of the business is and that the Kerrison name needed to remain connected with it”

The Turvill & Kerrison family connection goes back to the 1970's with cooperation between The Swiss Laundry in Cambridge, owned by the Turvill family, and Camplings during the busy summer seasons at Great Yarmouth.

The £600k investment by Camplings at their Great Yarmouth site which has been supported by EEDA, uses the latest technology to ensure that the water and energy consumption are comparable with the lowest levels of any laundry, world wide.

“This washing machine, which weighs 7.5 tonnes on its own, uses a quarter less water per kilo of linen processed than a typical industrial machine”, explains Richard Turvill, co director, who moved to the area four years ago to oversee the business.

“And in terms of energy savings, we have very sensitive thermostats and infra-red systems, that has reduced the energy used to dry, products such as towels, by 15pc.”

Mr Ellis agreed to support the opening of the facility, both in his role as chairman of EEDA, but also as a keen supporter of tourism in Norfolk.

Mr Turvill expressed his gratitude, “The support and guidance we have had from EEDA has been enormous and we are delighted that Richard Ellis has agreed to officially open the facility for us.”