WORKERS at a North-East depot have been made redundant after a haulage firm went into administration.

The cuts are the first to be confirmed in the region following the appointment of administrators at haulage firm Harrier Logistics.

The Milton Keynes company, which has a depot in Spennymoor, County Durham, appointed administrators Grant Thornton on Monday.

About 40 workers at the Spennymoor depot, which stands next to the town's Electrolux factory, were told they would be losing their jobs.

Harrier, which has five depots around the UK, supplied logistics and transport of fridges, televisions and other goods. The loss of two major contracts recently -one of which is understood to have been with Electrolux - led to its difficulties.

Administrators are looking to wind the company down.

Harrier employed 420 staff across the country, with about 40 at Spennymoor.

More than 320 staff were laid off yesterday morning, with skeleton staff kept at depots and head office to finish off any outstanding work.

Administrator Richard Hawes, of Grant Thornton, told The Northern Echo: "Harrier was bought out of insolvency in October but we weren't involved at that time.

"It has lost contracts in the past couple of months and has not been able to reduce its overheads in time.

"We have kept on three or four staff at each depot to tidy things up, but this will only be temporary.

"I think the main reason for the company becoming insolvent, as far as we are aware, is that it lost a couple of major contracts and, with a business like this, with more than 400 staff, the wage bill is very heavy each week.

"There were fixed overheads and they needed to keep the turnover at a certain level, which they could not do. It is a competitive market and it wasn't able to keep going."

One worker, who did not want to be named, said staff had been working overtime to try to keep the company afloat, but many had not been paid for the past week's work.

He said: "We are all looking for other work but we're not getting redundancy money from Harrier. We have to apply for what we are owed from the Government and that could take months."

Administrators said they would look to settle outstanding wages where possible