Unhappy ending for success story
FRIDAY was a distressing day indeed for the loyal workforce at UV Modular in Brighouse who started the day in employment and ended it facing the dole queue.
The company which designed and made ambulances had seemed to be one of the town's industrial success stories. Granted it had sometimes been a bumpy ride for the Armytage Road company but UV Modular had survived and its products were well-respected and had attracted orders from NHS ambulance trusts all over the country.
As recently as last year the company had secured a multi-million pound deal to supply ambulances to Scotland. Yet when the administrators went in last week at the request of the firm's directors they said they had no alternative but to make the workforce redundant, given the company's financial state.
Explaining the move to offload UV Modular, the firm's owners AssetCo plc said they wanted to exit from their 'low margin businesses.' Does this mean that the Brighouse company, however successful, was simply not profitable enough for its owners?
Shocked workers who were told to collect their belongings and leave the premises after arriving for work on Friday are left facing a bleak future as a result.
The arrival of two convoys of travellers in Brighouse this week has again thrown the spotlight on the responsibility of the local authority to provide a proper travellers' site in Calderdale. Unlike other authorities across the country, Calderdale has so far managed to avoid designating a permanent site. In the meantime, it seems likely that travellers' vans will keep turning up on unsuitable pieces of land.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Halifax
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -2 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Light snow
Temperature: 0 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
