UNION officials hope they can win a stay of execution for threatened Bairdtex during a face-to-face meeting with a top textiles boss.

Ken Patton, a main board director of Bairdtex's owners, William Baird, is travelling from London to Trawden on Wednesday to hear the unions' pleas for himself.

Meanwhile the unions have slammed Pendle Council for not helping save the jobs of the 130 workers at the mill, which is to close at the end of January.

A formal campaign to stop the closure has been launched by the textile unions representing staff at Bairdtex.

They want the mill's management to be trimmed and the firm given a stay of execution until the summer to prove it can survive.

Paul Hoggarth, regional organiser of the GMB which is leading the campaign, said: "We've listened to the management's arguements about why the mill is closing. Our members don't accept the reasons.

"This meeting with Mr Patton gives us a chance to ask him to give us until the summer so we can prove that the place is viable. We've been told he is the man who makes the decisions on the future of the firm."

Staff will return to full-time working from Monday after a period of four-day weeks, partly because of improved order books and because redundancy rules mean bosses have to pay staff full-time wages.

Mr Hoggarth says company claims that £4 million is needed to spend on new looms would have been avoided if the firm had implemented a regular maintenance programme.

The union was scathing of the council's promise to do all it can to help save jobs. "I hope the council gets off its backside and does something about it before it's too late," stormed Mr Hoggarth.

"It should be up there seeing what assistance it can give. Perhaps it can't do anything but at least it could be seen to be trying.

"If this is the only assistance we're going to get to save jobs in this area things are looking pretty grim."

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