Cash-flow problems to cost 60 jobs

Apr 2 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A FAMILY-OWNED County Durham business which employs around 60 people is expected to go into administration within days.

Thrislington Products Ltd in Newton Aycliffe, which designs and makes screens and partitions for customers including HM Prisons and Nissan, is poised to formally appoint Tenon Recovery as its administrator. Tenon yesterday confirmed it has been in discussions with the company about a possible administration which is expected shortly.

Thrislington has large contracts and assets of almost £2m but recently met cash-flow problems.

Union Amicus said a number of workers at the site, which does not recognise union membership, had been in touch to inform union officials that the factory had closed and to ask for advice.

The news is a further blow for the area which has lost more than 650 jobs in the past few months. Five hundred jobs went with the closure of Electrolux’s Spennymoor cooker factory and 169 are being axed at the Black and Decker factory, also in Spennymoor.

A Sedgefield Borough Council spokesman said: “This news is extremely disappointing for the company’s employees and the Sedgefield area.

“We will do everything we can to assist the employees of Thrislington Products and should the company require our assistance, will meet them to see what support we can offer.”

Thrislington Products, which says it is a market leader in its sector, designs and makes its products at the Newton Aycliffe factory.

It has recently been working on a £800,000 contract to make clean-room partitions for Indian business Vaibhav Healthcare, based in Mumbai.

It also has a £400,000 contract to supply clean-room walls and ceilings to Reckitt Benckiser, which makes products such as Dettol and Cillit Bang, in the UK.

No one from the business was available for comment.