A business that supports companies all over the world opens at new premises on Friday, a move that promises a brighter future for Teesdale. David Roberts reports.

THE empty desks at the new £750,000 premises of the Honeyman Group, on Barnard Castle's Harmire Enterprise Park, are not the result of staff shortages or cutbacks.

Instead, they bear testament to the success of the County Durham business.

They represent the number of staff taking the Honeyman name around the world, working off-site in every imaginable location.

Managing director Mark Thompson said: "It is very rare that we have everybody here.

"Most of the staff are going to be here for the opening, but even then I think there is one or two who are going to be missing."

The Honeyman Group provides a range of specialist support services within the pharmaceutical industry, including water sterilisation, checking and approving companies' cleaning equipment, analysis, training and technical support.

The company was founded in 1991, when the chairman, Trevor Honeyman, left his job at the town's Glaxo factory.

Working on his own from an industrial starter unit at nearby Stainton Grove, the business soon took off.

He said: "Within six months, it became obvious that I had something that was going to work.

"I then had to make the decision of whether to keep the company going simply as a lifestyle business, or take the much more difficult route of hiring staff and building the company up."

He chose the latter and, eight years ago, the company moved to bigger premises on Harmire Enterprise Park.

While a lot of the pharmaceutical industry is stagnating, the secret of the Honeyman Group's success is its ability to cover a wide spectrum of its subject area.

Mr Thompson said: "We have a niche market in a niche industry.

"There are other companies that do what we do, but whereas they will just offer testing, for example, we will provide analysis of the tests as well. We offer the whole package.

"We also have a very good reputation, which is down to our staff. While we do not manufacture anything, as such, what we do export is the knowledge and skills of our employees."

The company employs 37 staff and there are plans to recruit at least three more.

The expansion of the company has been helped by a grant from the Teesdale Enterprise Fund, a fund set up by GlaxoSmithKline to help Teesdale recover from 500 job losses at the Barnard Castle plant in 2001.

This year, Mr Honeyman becomes chairman of the Teesdale Enterprise Agency and is aware of the contribution companies such as his are making to the economic wellbeing of Teesdale and the surrounding area.

He said: "It would be great to see this enterprise park house 25 little Honeymans. This is the sort of business that Teesdale should have.

"We are clean and do not pollute the area. We are bringing business and skilled workers into Teesdale, much like Glaxo did when it first opened."

With new markets and business opportunities opening up in Europe, the US and the Far East, Mr Honeyman has no plans to rest on his laurels.

The new Honeyman premises has been designed to incorporate an extension, and this now seems a likelihood rather than a possibility.

There are also plans for a permanent base in Ireland, where the company conducts a lot of business.

Mr Honeyman said: "It is sometimes funny to think that when the phone rings, it could be someone from anywhere in the world ringing Barnard Castle for help with a problem.

"We do not have a ten-year plan to say 'we need to employ 60 people by such a date', but there are new options and possibilities all the time.

"The future now is probably more exciting than when I first started the business."