Steve Barclay MP paid a visit to the Littleport headquarters of awarding winning cable producers JDR.

The company, one of the fastest growing businesses in the county, is a leading supplier of subsea production umbilicals and subsea power cables to the global renewable and oil and gas markets.

The North East Cambridgeshire MP met with chief executive Andrew Norman and chief financial officer Martin Boden.

He also took the opportunity to tour the JDR factory floor, and discuss manufacturing techniques of cables for use in the harsh environments of deep offshore oil and gas fields with the company’s engineering and design teams.

Mr Barclay said: “I am keen to ensure UK suppliers, including businesses like JDR in my constituency, get a larger share of the lucrative offshore renewable energy market.

“ At present between 4% and 20% of the supply chain for offshore wind projects is UK firms and there is clearly scope to increase this to create more jobs including for apprenticeships.

“I am very grateful for the warm welcome and informative tour I received from JDR. It was fascinating to see the engineers at work designing cutting edge technology solutions for underwater cables and it is great news that the hard work put in by Andrew Norman and his team has been recognized through winning the EEF Business Growth Awards for 2013.”

JDR was formed in the early 1990s when Jacques Cable Systems (UK) and De Regt Special Cable (Holland) merged to become a design and manufacturing centre of subsea umbilicals and power cables.