Two Stoke-on-Trent ceramics companies today announced new orders together worth more than £5.5 million.

Stoke-based Portmeirion Potteries has revealed it has scooped orders valued at over £2.5 million for its new Seasons Collection launched just weeks ago at the International Spring Fair in Birmingham.

And Allied Insulators at Milton has beaten off intense foreign competition to win three contracts worth £3 million.

A Portmeirion spokesman said today: ‘‘This is the reverse of trends in the beleagured British pottery industry, recently beset with extensive redundancies, short working and closures.''

The company is already set to create more than 100 new jobs at a new visitor centre at its Stoke headquarters which will also increase production space.

Allied Insulators has won two contracts together worth £2 million from the National Grid to supply more than 70,000 insulator sets for new UK overhead power lines and to refurbish older ones.

A third order, valued at £1 million, has been won from Saudi Arabia for similar products.

The new contracts have led to six new posts being created at the company's Leek New Road site and have safeguarded the jobs of the company's 170 strong workforce.

Managing director Don Perrin said today: ‘‘This is work for our Milton plant. It has meant a modest increase in our workforce but more importantly it has safeguarded current levels of employment here.
‘‘The contracts mean we have been able to go up against stiff international competition to arrest the decline in our domestic market and also win an important overseas contract as well.''

Allied Insulators was acquired by the giant Beauford Group, which also owns Burslem-based Wade Ceramics, in November 1997.

Around 90 redundancies followed the take-over because of poor trading conditions.