Good training and education for our young people is crucial in the current economic climate and it was great to see the College’s new Waterfront site taking shape too.

The Oromo coffee business was set up by Ethiopian refugees and their FairTrade coffee is for sale in the FairTraders cooperative in Holmfirth.

Their coffee beans come from as far afield as Ethiopia and Bolivia and, as well as roasting the beans for their increasingly popular Grumpy Mule brand, they’re also roasting for the likes of Fortnum and Masons.

Their rosé won highly commended and their white won a bronze award out of 160 English wines. It’s a great start and, with a new wine tasting visitors centre and a swanky Eco lodge on the horizon, the Holmfirth Vineyard is also set to become a major tourist attraction.

We took the boat from Marsden up to the Standedge tunnel and then James kindly showed me around the visitors’ centre.

I never knew the site, which employs 100 people, was so large due to the landscaping.  The Yorkshire sandstone, which has extracted from the area since around 1850, has been used at the Kingsgate shopping centre in Huddersfield, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Winter Gardens in Sheffield.

Colin Porteus, the Managing Director, showed me the production line of the plastic fibres. They are primarily used in the manufacture of carpets but a more recent application has seen them being added to the paper in teabags.