A TEXTILE company has launched a multi-million pound damages claim against the government in a bid to save its future.

Cookson and Clegg Ltd, of Blackburn, is seeking between £5million and £10million after the Ministry of Defence broke with 60 years of tradition by awarding its "largest ever" uniforms contract to an Irish company.

The claim is now the company's only hope of survival after a bid to have the MOD decision judicially reviewed in the High Court failed.

Cookson and Clegg - which has around 35 employees and is based on Shadsworth industrial estate - has helped supply the MOD with 800,000 camouflage army uniforms annually.

But in June last year the government decided to award the five-year contract worth £50million to a new firm, Cooneen Watts and Stone Ltd, based in, Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, who are sub-contracting the work to China.Richard Hampson, Cookson and Clegg's managing director, said if the damages claim for alleged breaches under EC Procurement Regulations failed it would signal job losses and the end for the company's operations in Blackburn.

The contract decision has already led to a small number of job losses at Cookson and Clegg's Chorley-based parent company Pincroft Dyeing and Printing Co, where the uniforms are sent to be died.

It employs 200 and there are fears that more jobs could go.

Today Chorley MP Lyndsay Hoyle, who has lobbied in the Commons on the issue, branded the contract decision "totally unacceptable, morally wrong and legally questionable".

Cookson & Clegg is considering an appeal of the Judicial Review decision.

And Mr Hampson added: "My understanding is that the Court thought our remedy for damages under our regulations claim provided adequate compensation if successful and that a judicial review would duplicate much of that process. We wish to keep both claims alive if possible.

"If we are unsuccessful it will probably mean the closure of the business as it exists now and while Cookson and Clegg Ltd may continue as a trading name as part of a group.