A RAPIDLY growing Worcestershire telecoms and IT company has become the 100th business to be supported by an innovative programme which helps firms expand.

Datatech UK is opening a new state-of-the-art facility in Redditch with help from the £8m business development programme run by Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership. The company – formed in 2006 – provides data hosting for a range of clients in a variety of sectors, as well as providing other IT and telecom services.

Account manager Paul Adams said: “Many of the clients for whom we host data are expanding, and in order for us to fulfil their requirements we needed to more than double our current capacity. Our Alvechurch data centre became full, so we decided to invest in building a bigger facility in Redditch. Part of that investment came with money from the BDP, which provides match grant funding for SMEs which have expansion plans ready to implement that will safeguard existing jobs or create new ones."

The programme – managed by Birmingham City Council and funded through the European Regional Development Fund – runs until June 2015 and businesses in north Worcestershire can still apply.