The ambitious expansion plans of a Monmouth-based international company have been delayed by a last-minute withdraw of support in principal by the Welsh Assembly Government.

Siltbuster, which employees 46 people and exports water treatment and materials recycling technology worldwide had planned to build a new centre of excellence on the industrial land made available as part of the new Wonastow Road development.

They had planned to more than double their workforce to around 100 and develop a centre of excellence providing innovative recycling and water treatment technology from Monmouth to the UK, Europe and the English Speaking world.

Managing Director Dr Richard H Coulton said that they already export their products to 33 countries from the Falklands in the extreme south to Norway in the north and had plans to more than double the size of the business in the next five years.

“Most of the roles we would have created are for high tech engineers and scientists, the sort of job we naively thought Monmouth and Wales would welcome,” he added.

“In addition we currently spend several millions a year supporting the local economy by carrying out the majority of our fabrication work in Wales.”

However these plans have been put on hold following talks with the Assembly at the end of last week. Having been given verbal reassurance on several occasions by the Assembly that they wanted to support the scheme, they have now been told that the Assembly had already exceeded their job creation quota for 2015/16 and would not be providing any funding.

Richard D Coulton, Marketing Manager, told the Beacon yesterday, Tuesday 25th August that their plans to double over the next five years revolved around moving the hurdle of available space in their present position. “We have three premises on Wonastow Industrial Estate, growth for two of them would require us moving the third.”

They are currently talking to private sector funding to see if they can resolve the short-term issue.