A company has won a £1.3m contract to help ensure the water system in Holland stays clean.

Labman Automation Limited, based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, will design, manufacture and install a laboratory to analyse the drinking water supplied to more than four million domestic and industrial customers.

The company beat European competition to win the contract to install the laboratory with Vitens, Holland's leading water company. The system will be used to analyse up to 2,000 samples a day.

The laboratory, which will be automated, will detect and measure minute traces of contaminants that can affect the taste, clarity or hygiene of water.

This work is currently undertaken by a number of laboratories using manual systems.

Labman Automation managing director Andrew Whitwell said: "We have extensive experience in developing automated systems for deployment in laboratories, clean rooms and on production lines for companies operating in a wide spectrum of industries."

The company, which employs 25 people at its Stokesley site, recently completed a project for Sussex University to create a simulator to mimic the workings of the brain of a killer bee.

The Dutch lab is under construction and is expected to be completed early next year.