Manningham has been chosen as the launch-pad for a new call centre company.

Arete Business Services has chosen Manningham's Carlisle Business Centre as the base for its first call centre.

The firm hopes to open it offices in mid-March after months of preparation and research into the industry.

Arete, an ancient Greek term for moral excellence, describes itself as an "ethical call centre operator," and hopes to initially employ more than 50 people at the site.

In a bid to buck the trend of high turnover and low job satisfaction in the call centre industry, Arete says it focuses on providing comfortable and pleasant working conditions for its employees.

The firm is the brainchild of Alison Widdup and her husband Chris.

They have set the firm up together after both having experienced call centre life with large companies.

Mrs Widdup said: "Call centres are often very grim places to work and the focus is often on how many calls and average call times - this is not what matters to customers.

"We want to give customers staff who understand what they are talking about. Having customer satisfaction and high call turnover rates are two diametrically opposed ideas."

Mrs Widdup claimed her firm would be able to greatly improve job satisfaction and job retention within the industry, as well as being able to offer more competitive salaries.

"The call centre industry has the lowest levels of job satisfaction and of staff retention of any other profession.

"If firms are having to pay less on recruitment and training costs they can afford to pay more in wages, that's the way I look at it."

Mrs Widupp is already in negotiation with several companies for contracts to handle their customer care lines, including a major utility company and Grand Central railways, the firm fighting to bring increased passenger services to Bradford.

The announcement of another business being set up in the Manningham area has been hailed by David Culbitt, the chairman of local business organisation Manningham Means Business.

Mr Culbitt said: "This is great news that such a forward thinking company like Arete should want to be based in Manningham and I am so pleased to see that they share our values and objectives."