A FRENCH company has stepped in to buy Burnley housewares company Prestige - but the future of the remaining 100-strong workforce remains uncertain.

A letter on the staff noticeboard says that the goodwill, brand name and customer records have been sold to Meyer International, a cookware firm,but no mention is made of the press plant sparking fears that manufacturing will cease in Burnley and the remaining workers will be made redundant.

The Prestige brand name is internationally renowned and the company is especially well-known for making pressure cookers.

Tom Fallows, official of the General Municipal and Boilermakers' Union, said: "Job wise I am not optimistic that the company is going to stop in Burnley because there is no indication that the press plant is to be bought and they cannot continue to manufacture in this country without them. "I am very concerned about the future and I have already written to the receiver to try to arrange a meeting to find out what Meyer's intentions are."

Administrative receiver Sue Watson was brought into Prestige on January 31 after the company faced mounting debts. Eighty staff and more than 130 production workers were made redundant leaving a skeleton force to keep production going and meet current orders.

A week ago the company's profit-making Ewbank carpet sweeper division was sold to a worker-led buy-out which preserved about a dozen jobs.

Head of Burnley Council's economic development unit Hugh Simpson said today: "I share the trade union's concerns, there seems to be a lot of unanswered questions about what is going to happen to the jobs."

"The workforce has been very loyal and we will be meeting with the trade union to try to persuade the company to keep manufacturing in Burnley."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.