BURNLEY Council will work with TRW to do everything possible to secure the long-term future of the company and to find jobs for the 450 workers who are being made redundant.

The assurance was given after Burnley MP Peter Pike and Burnley's chief executive Roger Ellis, met company site management and trade unions to discuss the job losses.

"The meeting was very useful," said Mr Pike. "We now clearly understand that this is a problem caused by the high value of the pound and Britain's absence from the Euro-zone."

Management, he added, made it clear that the growing financial pressures placed on the Burnley factory from those sources made redundancies inevitable. Coun Tony Harrison, chairman of the council's ecominic and property sub-committee, added: "It is clearly not the fault of a loyal and hard working workforce although some of them will have to pay the ultimate price. The council has offered every assistance to TRW in particular in helping the workforce to secure new employment.

"We hope this will be easier, with some local companies expanding at present and others moving on to Network 65 business park and the new Shuttleworth Mead business park."

The council and MP are to seek a meeting with the Government minister to impress on him the issues raised by the Burnley redundancies.

"In particular, we want to impress on him the effects of being outside the Euro zone on a manufacturing area such as Burnley," said Mr Pike.

He added: "We also want him to look again at Burnley's grant status as the announcement, unfortunately, proves what we have been saying recently about the vulnerability of the local economy."

Union leaders representing hundreds of workers at TRW are to meet this weekend to consider the way forwards.

Convenor Caroline Kavanagh, said although some job losses had been expected, the scale of the cuts announced at the Burnley sites had taken everyone by surprise.

"People here are very despondent. There just aren't the manufacturing jobs locally for people to go for," she said.

"We realise that we are under great pressure and this industry is very competitive, but we never expected this." And Caroline said workers were concerned production will be switched to overseas plants where labour is cheaper.

"Our customers will still want switches for their cars, but the company may want to make them where wages are 60p or a £1 an hour."

Union representatives will meet to discuss the situation over the weekend.

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