Glass Futures project on course for St Helens

The £70m ground-breaking scheme brings industry and academia together in a consortium made up of major glass manufacturers and universities, including Pilkington Glass, British Glass, and the Universities of Liverpool and Leeds — with the aim of putting the UK at the forefront of global glass manufacturing. In early 2018 St Helens was announced as one of two locations across the UK to become home to Glass Futures, with the mothballed line at the Pilkington Glass Watson Street – home to Pilkington texture glass and Pilkington Profilit – preferred to focus on the ​“hot” side of glass production. This would see the installation of a large experimental glass furnace capable of producing 30 tonnes of product per day for windows, buildings, bottles and fibre glass. In December, Government announced a £66m fund for ​‘transforming foundation industries’ which would be accessible to the sectors of glass, ceramics, chemicals, steel and cement as well as a £170m fund to support these industries to reduce their carbon emissions. It is likely that Glass Futures will be funded from these sources. read more