‘Heartbreak’ at disabled plant

8:54am Wednesday 23rd May 2007

A FACTORY in York which employs 47 disabled people has announced it is to close.

Remploy, in Redeness Street, announced the closure yesterday along with the axing of 31 other factories and the merger of 11 others across the country.

The company is the leading provider of jobs for the disabled in the UK, with the factory in York providing textile work.

Alison Henderson, the leading hand and GMB shop steward for the factory, said everyone was "heartbroken" by the news.

She said: "We're all totally shell-shocked here.

"Remploy are saying that no disabled people will be made redundant, but some of these people have really bad disabilities and if they get them other jobs, how long are they going to stay there if they can't do it?

"There are not a lot of people in our factory who could go out into mainstream workplaces - they want to say here."

She said that some of the employees had been at the factory for decades.

She said: "It's their home. They get out of bed in the morning and they have a job, they have a purpose."

Remploy has said the York factory loses more than £850,000 a year, although Ms Henderson denied this.

The announcement follows a lengthy wait for news about the plants' futures for staff.

Protesters from across the country gathered in York last August to campaign to save the factories after learning Remploy had overspent its Government grant of £111 million.

York MP Hugh Bayley has been pressing Remploy to keep the Redeness Street factory open. He reacted with dismay at the news, but praised the work staff have done. Mr Bayley said: "Many of York's Remploy workers have been with the company for years and some will find it extremely difficult to move to other employers.

"I want Remploy to explore whether they could keep a small factory open in York to support workers who can't move on and I will be meeting the company's director of product business, Alan Hill, to discuss this on June 5."

Mr Bayley said the closure of the factories had been praised by six of the main disabled UK charities, but he was concerned about how Remploy handled the announcement.

A Remploy spokesman said: "We were set twin objectives by the Government to help many more disabled people into work each year and to keep within a funding limit of £555 million over the next five years.

"The plans we have announced meet those objectives and we will now seek to work with the trade unions and to consult with our employees and disability groups over the coming months.

"We want to provide disabled people in the area with the right support to find real jobs and we will be working with local employers to ensure disabled job seekers have the skills they need."

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