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NTL delivers blow to North

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Stephen McKinley

US Communications group NTL has decided not to proceed with a £20 million investment in Northern Ireland.

Plans had been unveiled in 1999 that would have created nearly 880 new jobs by 2003 at a new call center in Belfast.

But NTL is allegedly struggling to reduce an £11 billion debt and has also postponed a number of construction projects in the UK and Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s Industrial Development Board (IDB) offered NTL financial assistance packages totalling £3.8 million towards the cost of the project.

An IDB spokesperson confirmed that the offer of assistance was made, but added only that: "the Industrial Development Board offers of assistance are performance related and payment is subject to conditions. If any conditions are not met in the agreement, no assistance is able to be drawn down by the company."

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NTL first opened in Northern Ireland in 1996. At that time it made a committment to invest as much as £1 billion sterling in the market and deliver more competitive telecommunication charges.

The company planned to access 80 per cent of homes in Northern Ireland by 2003. However it currently services just the Greater Belfast area and Derry and has halted all its construction projects.

Meanwhile, a Coleraine, Co. Derry, company has been singled out for praise by Northern Ireland enterprise minister, Sir Reg Empey.

R. Beveridge Engineering invited the minister to open its new 18,000-square-foot premises, and he applauded the quadrupling of its workforce to 28 full-time staff after just over three years in business.

"This major investment in impressive new premises, high-tech equipment and training will allow R. Beveridge Engineering to pursue a focused growth strategy. hopefully leading to more employment opportunities within the local community," Empey said.

The company, a client of small business agency LEDU, specializes in the manufacture of products for the steel industry as well as machine installation and general engineering services to the production industry.

Empey also pointed out that R. Beveridge Engineering has serviced customers throughout Ulster, Ireland and Scotland.

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