A 50-YEAR-OLD steel fabrication business is plotting further decades of success in an expansion bosses say will create jobs.

DJ Camp is building a new factory to complement its existing base and meet growing demand.

The company’s order book has swollen with stellar work on Bishop Auckland’s Kynren open-air live show augmented by contracts in the building, transport and catering sectors.

The business, based on Furnace Industrial Estate, in Shildon, County Durham, is making a horse walker training aid for Kynren, having already been tasked with supplying lighting towers and improvements to the outdoor extravaganza’s lake.

However, Steve Bassett, operations director, told The Northern Echo that the business was primed to secure more work across its various sectors, which has led to it erecting a building three times the size of its existing base.

Once open later this year, the factory will be used alongside Camp’s original plant and feature twin overhead cranes, giving the business greater space to fulfil contracts.

Mr Bassett also said the expansion will allow the company, which began in the 1960s as a dairy engineering business, to take its workforce to at least 20 staff.

He said: “We are expanding quite quickly and so far this year we have employed another four people.

“We are getting business after business and have done a lot for Kynren.

“We have a bank of customers who are coming back to us week after week.

“We have built the extension from scratch and it will help with space.”

Mr Bassett said the firm will also continue to benefit from the expansion of its repertoire across a number of sectors, with traditional structural steel work supplemented by ornate balustrades and contracts to make agricultural sweepers and grease separators for caterers.

Bosses at the company are also celebrating after apprentice Nathan Matthews was named best apprentice for welding and fabricating and overall intermediate apprentice of the year at New College Durham.

They added the 19-year-old, from Shildon, is now in line to take part in the World Skills event at Birmingham later this year.

Mr Matthews said: “I want to keep going as far as I can; doing an apprenticeship is great because you get to learn while you are working and don’t have the university costs.”

Mr Bassett praised the teenager.

He added: “I regularly forget Nathan is an apprentice due to his wide range of skills and the quality of work he turns out.”