THERE was a "glimmer of hope" last night for former workers of a North-East chipboard factory which went into receivership earlier this year.

Although a team of 30 Austrians were yesterday dismantling the plant and machinery at former kitchen top manufacturer Masistar's Shildon factory, The Northern Echo can reveal there may be a potential buyer for the site.

All 129 staff at Masistar were made redundant when the firm went into receivership in February and the majority of the business's assets were sold to Hexham company Egger (UK) for £4.5m.

Egger found that reviving the plant would not be viable and now the machinery, including the two main production lines, is being moved to one of the company's European sites.

But Egger does not own the land on which the factory sits. The 23.7-acre site, and 269,000sq ft factory, has been put up for sale for £2.75m by its owners, a group of private London-based investors.

Sanderson, Townend and Gilbert is the selling agent and its director, David Jackson, said: "We have had a great deal of interest.

"We have had dozens of requests for information, we have had several viewers and we have had offers. At the moment there is a good offer that we are dealing with.

"Although it is at an early stage, it is very positive.

"We have had interest from a number of different types of organisations, a mixture of investors, developers and owner occupiers."

John Elliott, business development executive at County Durham Development Company, said that the sale was at a sensitive stage.

He said: "I am looking to set up a meeting with (regional agency) OneNorth East to discuss the next step with them, such as grant aid for any new project.

"I don't want to shout too loudly as it is at a sensitive stage, and we have no time- scale for how long this might take. But if this was to go ahead, the number of jobs it would bring would cover the numbers that were lost, at the least.

"While nothing is definite, there is a glimmer of hope."

* The factory was formerly the site of manufacturing business George Reynolds UK, which sold the business to Vertex Panel Products in February 2002.

Vertex went into administration and was sold to Masistar but within two months also went into administration.