A commercial cleaning company hopes to create 20 jobs after opening an office in Leicester.

Derby-based Clean Slate opened an office in Millstone Lane in the summer, to help serve a growing customer base in the city and suburbs.

Managing director Mike Armitage said the office was currently staffed two days a week, but will go full time within a matter of weeks.

The business already employs 20 cleaners in the city and said it had identified room for expansion.

It has targeted 816 Leicester businesses and is approaching them through mailshots and a telephone campaign.

Mr Armitage said: "The Millstone Lane office is a foothold in Leicester.

"We had a choice of whether to go big in Nottingham or Leicester, and this seemed to be the way to go. "There seems to be a lot of investment going on here and more forward thinking – we are getting far more favourable responses in Leicester.

"We would like to double the number of people we've got at the moment in Leicester, which would take us to 40 staff and which would need around 10 contracts."

The business has 130 staff in Derby, and around 10 workers in Nottingham.

It turned over £1.5 million in the year to March, 16 per cent up on the £1.29 million the previous year. Mr Armitage said trade had been steady this year.

The company specialises in office and window cleaning, and about 40 per cent of its contracts are in the public sector including schools and GP surgeries. The Leicester side of the business currently includes four contracts valued at around £125,000 a year.

Mr Armitage took the business over in 2001 and owns 50 per cent, with the other half split between eight members of staff.

Contracts include Gateway College where the business has been working for 18 months and where the company has 16 staff.

Another is with Bowling Green Street Surgery in Leicester.

Chris McCombie, facilities manager at The Practice plc, which runs the surgery, said high quality health and safety was in the best interests of patients, staff, visitors and other contractors.

He said: "We were dissatisfied with the cleaning services being provided at Bowling Green Street Surgery and having worked with Clean Slate before, we asked them to take over the cleaning services."