Jaycare owners to close factories

Mar 18 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal

THE new owner of collapsed North Tyneside plastics manufacturer Jaycare is to close two of its three factories but has said it will retain most of the 200 staff.

Portsmouth-based Cope Allman, now known as Cope Allman Jaycare, said yesterday it would cut back on production and has said it will cut staff but still has not revealed how many will go at the 17-year-old firm’s New York Industrial Park site.

Jaycare had cut 24 staff just before Christmas and said it was in negotiation about further redundancies after losing a major contract. Less than three weeks later it was in administration.

Yesterday Peter Darlington, director of operations at Cope Allman Jaycare, said: “We have consulted with the workforce on an evaluation of the business and we now propose to consolidate the production to a single site. We anticipate to retain around 80% of the production output and the majority of jobs.”

Workers have been concerned about large scale job losses since Christmas despite Cope Allman’s promises to rebuild the company.

Alan Hall, director of manufacturing body EEF Northern, said: “I hope that Cope Allman stays true to its intentions to retain the majority of jobs, as Jaycare has a large number of highly skilled workers that have helped build the company up to such a large scale over the years.”

Jaycare, which until recent years had an annual turnover of about £18m, saw its profits peak at £4.9m in the year to April 2004, then plummet to £2.3m in 2005 before going £426,000 into the red in the 12 months to April 2006, which is the last year for which its accounts are available.