A TEXTILE rental factory’s decision to transfer part of its operation to Cumbria has resulted in 85 job losses in the North-East.

The Sunlight Service Group, which provides linen to hotels and the NHS from two separate operations based on the same site in St Helen Auckland, County Durham, issued redundancy notices to a third of its workforce after deciding to move the hotel work over to its specialist plant in Kendal.

The remaining 160 staff members will focus solely on healthcare provision.

Redundancy letters were delivered this week, following a 30-day consultation with the affected staff members, whose positions include manual, clerical, management, engineering and transport.

Martin Roberts, Sunlight’s human resources director, said: “We decided to make St Helen Auckland a healthcare factory because it carried out 75 per cent healthcare and 25 per cent hotel work.

“Having the two together in one factory is not particularly efficient.We met with staff collectively and individually to explain the situation.

“It is always regretful to make people redundant and we do not that lightly.

“This is not a good time of the year either and clearly these things are levelled against organisations, but there is never an ideal time and we have thought about that very carefully.”

He said all redundant staff would receive the payouts to which they were entitled and their notice varied depending on how long they had been working for the company.

One of the affected workers, who did not want to be named, said: “Everybody got their notice on Monday.

“They are taking work off us to give to other people. It is devastating. Some people are going to struggle to find other work because they do not have a skill. It is going to be really hard on us all.”

The original number of redundancies was expected to be 96, but was reduced to 85 following the 30-day consultation.

The Sunlight group has 45 factories nationwide and employs about 9,000 people.

It is the UK’s leading provider of textile rental and laundering services.