WORK has begun on building a new £1.3 million complex for printer services company Express Terminals on the Ripon Campus Business Park at the University College of Ripon & York St John - a venture which could eventually generate up to 50 new jobs.

The entire 115 staff of the firm, which also has an office in France and provides printer support for the computer services industry, turned up on the site armed with forks and smiles to symbolically turn the turf at the start of the construction work by Severfield-Reeve Designbuild.

By the time it is completed in late autumn, the 30,000sq ft project will include first-floor offices and use of 7,500sq ft for the service and repair of computer equipment with another 15,000sq ft set aside for a warehouse and distribution facility.

It will mean that at last Express Terminals employees split between three sites in Ripon - at Allhallowgate, Sycamore Grange and Fisher Green - will be able to converge under one roof with room to spare for up to 50 more staff who will be recruited as the business further expands.

Project manager Peter Young, who because of lack of space has had to operate from the Ripon home of managing director Peter Whitehouse alongside Mr Whitehouse himself, said: "Our main building at Allhallowgate was designed to accommodate 50 people so it is pretty full. Our IT manager and engineers have had to split between two other premises.

So you can imagine how much everyone is looking forward to our new headquarters which will be bordered on one side by playing fields and with countryside on another."

The work has already started on the road infrastructure and main services of the complex which will be part of the second phase of the Ripon Campus Business Park.

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