AMID the continuing decimation of the textiles industry as 1,900 UK jobs go in the break-up of the giant Coats Viyella group and another 3,000 are up for sale as buyers are sought for their firms, let us hope that the shock waves that reach East Lancashire are minimised.

For caught up in this upheaval are more than 400 East Lancashire workers employed in the group's home furnishings division Dorma factory at Burnley and the Albert Hartley mill in Barnoldswick.

Their jobs are pitched into inevitable uncertainty as the division is among those that Coats Viyella is selling as it offloads operations and falls back on its thread-making core.

But worrying as all this is for the Dorma and Hartley employees, their firms are far from threadbare outfits. The home furnishings division's operations and brands are understood to be profitable and should attract buyers.

For the security of the East Lancashire workers and the continuity of the business that provides their jobs, there should be a swift and seamless transfer to new owners -- and we believe there are good prospects of this.

And while our region may have been hit by severe jobs blows this year, particularly in the manufacturing sector, it has also experienced boosts in the other direction -- as we saw only this week with the announcement of 130 new jobs being created in Rossendale by the booming Etiquette suit-hire business and today by the 'rescue' of 60 jobs that were destined to be lost in the closure of the Leoni Wiring Systems factory in Accrington.

The trend, then, is not all gloom, but one of comebacks amid setbacks.

It is a process which we believe the government should encourage with real regional aid for industry and business in areas like East Lancashire which are taking a lot of the blows from the cutbacks in manufacturing.

Meantime, we believe it is a trend that the Burnley and Barnoldswick workers caught up in the Coats Viyella shake-out can firmly hope to join in any case -- but the sooner, the better.