A GROUND-breaking project to help North Ayrshire businesses expand and create jobs is celebrating completing its first year.

Team North Ayrshire has worked directly with the top 150 companies which have been identified as having the greatest potential for growth.

North Ayrshire’s unemployment rate is now at its lowest level since 2008 and over the coming months there will be a continuing focus to work with businesses to create more jobs.

There are also plans in place to develop an international strategy which will bring high end jobs in key industries such as engineering and science to the area and ensure North Ayrshire becomes an employment hot spot.

In addition, Scottish Enterprise has selected North Ayrshire Council as the first local authority in the country to pilot the delivery of innovation services to help local business growth. Further plans including appointing six business growth managers to work with the top 150 companies to try and create more than 450 local jobs.

Alastair Dobson, managing director of ‘Taste of Arran’, director of Visit Arran, and a member of the Economic Development and Regeneration Board, said: “It’s been a great first year and we have now got a platform from which we can take things forward.

“We are now looking forward to continuing to work with local businesses for the next 12 months and beyond in order to help support growth in North Ayrshire.” Team North Ayrshire has worked with Sercon Services Ltd in Irvine; Innovative wind turbine services company Prontoport; Irvine engineering company Millar Callaghan.

Lorraine Stevely, Managing Director at Sercon, added: “In the last three years we’ve grown by 170 per cent, and have expanded by 21 per cent so, with the help of team North Ayrshire, we are always planning ahead.”