ONE of Castleton’s major employers, Farrel Corporation in Queensway, is said to be shedding nearly 20 jobs.
The family of one employee, who did not want their name to be published, said staff at the works, formerly owned by David Bridge, had asked for 17 or 18 volunteers for redundancy, out of the 150 or so employees who work there.
The cuts would be across all sections of the works, which makes machinery for the rubber and plastics industries.
These included the machine shop, assembly, fabrication, sales staff and finance staff.
The relative said: "We also know that Farrel is losing money at two of its other plants – in the United States and at Staines, near London, while Farrel in Castleton has a full order book, so much so that some of its orders are being transferred to other factories. What we want to know is why do jobs have to go in Castleton, which is obviously profitable. Wouldn’t it be better to mothball the two which are losing money?"
Farrel in Castleton had its origins in the late 1880s when David Bridge began the business, specialising in high quality industrial mixers synonymous with high quality and, recently, cutting edge technology.
Farrel acquired Bridge’s in the late 1960s and today its Queensway factory covers five hectares with a 2005 turnover of approximately US$64M (£42.5M).
Farrel was approached by the Observer for a comment but did not respond by the time we went to press.
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Rochdale Overseer, Beverely Hills, Royton (18/05/2009 at 18:40)
However, what I have witnessed over the past few years is yet more sinister and depressing.
Rochdale manufacturing sites with good order books closed down and shipped out.
One of the major causes? A pattern is emerging and it involves the meddling and ineptitude of the Rochdale Development Agency and very senior officers within Rochdale Council. In my humble opinion, millions of pounds of top salaries, expenses, pensions and allowances wasted on sheer incompetance and failure for Rochdale's workers.
The pattern is clear. Factories sold off for housing developments. It probably looked very attractive during the fake housing bubble and associated get rich quick schemes. Some of it was probably well meaning as a way of reusing redundant empty sites.
The problem is that many of the manufacturing sites that magically got planning permission in Rochdale were not empty. Yet very odd deals were done.
Examples include Whipp & Bourne also in Castleton within a stone's throw of Farrel's. There are others examples in and around Rochdale were the RDA have meddled and all there is to show for it is unemployment, a bombsite and a clean pair of heels from companies that have scarpered with cash from lucrative planning permissions on inappropriate sites.
Again some of this was well intentioned - it was designed to get firms out of old factories and into new units on sites such as Kingsway. But somehow the deals fell through and manufacturing left our town.
For the RDA to lose a few jobs that way is unfortunate but as this has happened time and time again then they must be made accountable for this abject failure. Empty muddy fields and empty speculative office developments together with a bonkers town centre redevelopment does not create one permanent manufacturing job to replace the many that have slipped through the fingers of the Fat Cats that mismanaging our town's future.
Why do I say this about the Farell site?
Well didn't we hear last year that if residential planning permission wasn't granted for part of the site then its future would be uncertain. All we had was acquiesence from the planners and senior officers at RMBC. The jobs are now going anyway. Rochdale sold down the river yet again.
Who runs our town? Planning speculators? Development companies? We were once a proud town based on thrift hard work and common sense.
We don't need millions of pounds spent on wasteful "development agencies" that even failed to deliver the goods during the phoney boom time.
To save what is left of our manufacturing base there must be work to concentrate on protecting and growing our existing business and not some flash pipe dreams that all cost us dear.