In brief: Full steam ahead for Pierce; Cooper Software & more

A TRADITIONAL coach painting company, which has helped restore historic steam trains such as the Flying Scotsman, is working with Lancashire accountants Pierce on its growth plans.

Heritage Painting, based in Blackburn, was founded in 2011 by ex-RAF officer Ian Hewitt, a former volunteer with the East Lancashire Railway.

Over the last 12 months the business has expanded by hiring two more staff.

Mr Hewitt is looking at developing the business to include other heritage vehicles such as traction engines and rolling stock and wants to further boost the team with the appointment of an apprentice through the Heritage Skills Initiative.

Heritage Painting has appointed the Blackburn business advisory and accountancy group Pierce as its advisers, supplying a range of tax and business advice.

Mark Walmsley, associate director at Pierce, added: “In its first year of business Heritage Painting has worked on several major projects and taken on expert staff, making a real name for itself in a genuinely specialist market.”

::

DARESBURY IT services provider adept4 has sold its small, non-core health and safety consultancy.

The company bought the health and safety consultancy unit last year as part of the acquisition of TGF Consultants.

It has now sold it, for an undisclosed sum, to MD Safety Management, a Merseyside health and safety management company. The deal will allow
adept4 to continue to focus its expertise on providing full service IT solutions, while also broadening its network

Peter Birkett, chief executive of adept4, said: “We have a good personal and professional relationship with the MD Safety Management team and it’s been a pleasure working with them on this deal.

“We will no doubt continue to work alongside them on various projects and are looking forward to growing our business network through this arrangement. This deal will allow adept4 to continue to specialise in providing global IT service solutions to our growing client base.”

::

SCOTTISH software company, Cooper Software, has opened a Manchester office.

The Dunfermline firm, which specialises in products and services that complement applications designed by Sweden’s IFS Applications, has taken space at Didsbury Business Centre on Barlow Moor Road.

It said it had taken the step after expanding its customer base in the North West and the Midlands.

Managing director Frank Cooper, who founded the company in 2005, said: “After an extremely busy year and growing customer base

in the North West and the Midlands, there was a clear need to open an additional office in England. Manchester was chosen due to its excellent transport network and geographic location.

“We currently employ 30 people at our development centre in Scotland, Manchester will add room to house our growing consultancy team and client team. Our target is to have five to six staff working from Manchester in the coming months.”

::

WARRINGTON web firm Ixis has won a major contract to provide managed hosting and support services to health and care watchdog the Care Quality Commission.

Ixis, which specialises in building sites on the open source Drupal platform, won the work after being placed on a government procurement framework last year.

Co-founder Mike Carter said: “Our contract with the Care Quality Commission will play a critical role in the delivery of digital services to the health and adult social care sector. Our appointment demonstrates the trust in our ability to provide agile, iterative, digital development methodologies and the security of our robust hosting platforms.”