AN engineering firm is axing 55 jobs at its manufacturing site in Blackburn.

Presspart Manufacturing, on Whitebirk Industrial Estate, has told staff around a quarter of its workforce is to be made redundant.

The company is a world leader in deep drawn metal pressing components and makes products for the automotive and pharm-ecutical industry, including aerosol cans for inhalers.

A worker at the company contacted the Lancashire Telegraph about the redundancies, which he claimed were being made to cut costs.

The firm said about 200 workers were employed at Blackburn but did not comment further.

Presspart was bought by German-based Heitkamp and Thumann Group in 2002.

Before that, the business and sister firm Decopart, Nelson, were part of the Presspart Group, which was one of East Lancashire's biggest manufacturers, employing almost 500 workers.

Terry Burns, North West regional officer for Amicus and a county councillor for Burnley North East confirmed the union had been informed of job losses.

He said: "It's another bad day for manufacturing in Lanc-ashire, but not as bad as it could have been.

"We have been notified 55 jobs are going, which is about a quarter of the workforce including casual staff.

The casual staff will be the first to go and around 10 managers have volunteered for the redundancy package, which is good compared to the state minimum which most firms offer.

"From what I can gather it has been pretty amicable so far and will be phased over 12 months to lessen the blow.

"They have had to make the redundancies because of a downturn in business, mainly because of competition from overseas from places like China, which pays lower wages and is not particularly good with health and safety."