10:55am Tuesday 3rd October 2006
By Nigel McFarlane
NEARLY 70 jobs are set to go at a Bolton manufacturer.
NC Brown's Storage Equipment on the Firwood Industrial Estate, will be wound down by its Shropshire-based owner in two phases, with a total loss of 67 jobs by next March.
Staff at the company, which specialises in the manufacture of lockers and storage shelves for the private and public sector, were told last Thursday that the first phase would see half the jobs go by the end of the year.
NC Browns' parent company, Telford-based Whittan Storage Systems, will transfer work from the Bolton factory to its Link International business, also based in Telford.
Management and shop stewards are due to meet with a representative from trade union Amicus today, to discuss consultation and redundancy terms.
A spokesman for Whittan said: "The announcement has only just been made to staff in Bolton, and we will not be making any further comment until things are sorted out at a local level."
A member of staff, who did not wish to be named, said: "We have been told that the whole thing is down to a lack of orders. All the work is going down to Telford. Things have been slowing down here for a while, but this has still come out of the blue.
"We think they will just wind down, getting the existing orders out of the door. People here have families and some of them will be out of work by Christmas."
NC Brown was founded in Heywood in 1947, where it grew until it employed nearly 100 staff. The firm moved to Ramsbottom, but after a large fire it set up on Weston Street, Bolton in 1974. The company was saved from closure in 1987, when businessman George Hutchinson, who started out as an assembly worker with the company when he was 16, invested £80,000.
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