Jobs lifeline

NEW venture: 4D Enterprises’ Patrick Mellor (managing director), Steve Bottomley (commercial director) and Mike Braddock (chairman)

Axed Remploy staff in line for factory boost
DISABLED workers who fell victim to the closure of Remploy could be handed a jobs lifeline.

A factory run by 4D Enterprises is set to open at an undisclosed site in Oldham during April, bosses have confirmed. The aim is for jobs to go to workers axed from the Remploy plant on Ashton Road, Bardsley, last year.

The business, like the former factory, will specialise in the production of windows and doors.

Company chairman Mike Braddock said: “This is a new operation which we are hoping will be up and running in April. We have identified premises in Oldham.

“This is a less restrained version of the Remploy factory - with an element of profit in the running of a social enterprise.”

Former Remploy employees are members of the company board, including former site manager, Pat Mellor.

Production ended at Remploy last August after a government review suggested the money put into the company’s national sites could be better spent and decided to withdraw funding. It suggested some of the factories could become social enterprises or cooperatives.

Relieved bosses hope the new factory can bring up to 20 former workers back into employment.

Mike said: “We have a had great support from Oldham Council and Oldham West and Royton MP Michael Meacher.

The Department of Work and Pensions said this week almost half the ex-Remploy factory workers who have taken up the Government’s employment support package have found work or are in training.