A HAMPSHIRE filtration company has announced plans for a new £3.5m base, which looks set to create up to 50 jobs.

Porvair Filtration Group has secured a premises in New Milton as it looks to consolidate its industrial process business on to one site.

The company currently employs nearly 50 staff across separate units in the town, but the new building would bring these under one roof.

More staff will also be brought over to the 42,000sq ft premises when Porvair moves its microfiltration business from Segensworth to the new building next year.

As well as integrating Porvair’s industrial processes operations, the strategic move will provide further capacity at Segensworth to support the company’s growth plans in the aerospace market.

The hope is to grow the New Milton part of the business by £1m a year, bringing new jobs.

It is expected that the move, which is part of ongoing expansion plans, will create some 50 jobs, a spokesman said.

The firm, which has supplied the process industry with performance-driven filtration equipment for more than 25 years, currently employs nearly 50 people at its New Milton sites and 240 at Segensworth.

It will spend a total of £3.5m on purchasing and fitting out the building and intends to turn it into a cutting edge facility with £300,000 in clean room technology.

Porvair, which has its headquarters in Norfolk, manufactures in both the UK and USA and has an extensive network of offices and distributes throughout the world. Finance director David Mellor said he expected the new integrated base to increase overall capacity within the group, allowing growth across the business and giving a platform for further expansion.

He said: “By bringing our industrial processes business into one integrated site, our objective will be to increase efficiency and ensure our customers benefit from market leading innovation in process and filtration.

“We are looking at growth of £1m per year in this sector and this investment will be a huge step towards realising that.”

He added that the new building would improve customer service by providing a more “structured, cohesive and centralised base”.