HUNDREDS of workers who lost their jobs when a North-East clothing factory closed are to share more than £250,000.

The payout for staff from Praxis, in Ferryhill, County Durham, has been won by the GMB union which claimed the company failed to consult over the redundancies.

Praxis, a supplier of Next and BHS, folded earlier this year, with administrators being called into its head office in Shipley, West Yorkshire.

Its factory in Ferryhill, which had a tradition of tailoring going back almost 30 years, then closed with the loss of about 145 jobs.

The GMB, which represented workers at Ferryhill and about 60 staff in Shipley, won an employment tribunal, held in Newcastle.

It argued that bosses did not consult with trade unions and the first staff heard of the job losses was when they learned the company was in receivership.

Each worker is now due to receive the equivalent of about two months wages.

The cash will come from the Government's redundancy payments office.

Jackie Woodall, regional organiser for the GMB, said: "We would far rather still have these jobs because there have been too many losses in the clothing and textile industry, particularly in the North-East.

"But at least there has now been some compensation for the sudden and unexpected way employees lost their jobs."

Before the Ferryhill and Shipley closures, Praxis had already cut last year 240 jobs at sites in Hartlepool, Stockton and Newton Aycliffe

Many of the Praxis workforce at Ferryhill have now found work, while employment schemes have been set up in the area to help people find jobs.

The outlook for the textile industry, however, remains bleak with union leaders claiming that more than 4,000 jobs have gone in the region in the last two years.

Much work has gone abroad, particularly to the Far East, where because of poor pay and conditions clothes can be manufactured much cheaper than in the UK