PRIME Minister and Witney MP David Cameron heaped praise on an Oxfordshire firm which has just opened a new £3m production line.

Mr Cameron cut the ribbon on the state-of-the-art industrial safety helmet manufacturing line at JSP based at Worsham Mill, Minster Lovell, which has created 20 jobs.

He said: “With our economy today, we desperately need to rebalance it in favour of high-tech manufacturing and exports like this. It is heartening to see the expansion has been made here in Oxfordshire and not somewhere else in the world.”

The new production line has a capacity of four million helmets a year which will be sold in more that 90 countries worldwide.

As well as new jobs which brings the workforce to more than 210, new apprenticeships and graduate trainee schemes will be introduced next year.

Chief executive Mark Johnstone said: “We can now manufacture helmets cheaper here in Oxfordshire than anywhere else in the world.”