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Fife Remploy factories wait to hear their fate

Uncertain future: the Remploy factory in Leven.
Uncertain future: the Remploy factory in Leven.

The fate of Fife’s two Remploy factories will be decided later this month.

The Remploy board will meet on June 26 to consider bids for the factories in Cowdenbeath and Leven which, between them, employ 65 disabled workers.

Local MPs Gordon Brown, Lindsay Roy and Thomas Docherty have campaigned for several months for the jobs to be saved.

They argue that the factories have full order books and the possibility of expanding sales of life-jackets, their award-winning global product.

They also say that the workforce in Cowdenbeath and Leven have accepted major changes in working practices to save the factories.

The MPs added that workers who wished to take redundancy should be able to do so but that the factories should stay open and continue to make the products that sell worldwide.

Mr Brown said: “They have been part of the fabric of Fife for 60 years. We do not want to lose the expertise they have.

“We feel a worldwide market exists and if the products are not made in Fife they will be made elsewhere. These are manufacturing jobs that are worth saving.”

Two possible buyers for the closure-threatened Remploy factories were identified in February and their names were passed to work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

The MPs were confident the facilities could be saved but called on the Government’s “miserly” post-privatisation support to be increased. Bids have also been received for Remploy’s Dundee factory.