A MILL looks set to axe up to 60 jobs after bosses decided to end production of a type of paper.

Workers at Sappi Europe's Blackburn mill have been told the company intends to close its cast-coated paper operation at its Feniscowles site.

Although no final decision has been taken the company has already spoken to an Italian paper firm interested in buying some of the equipment at the Blackburn mill and taking it overseas.

Sappi has blamed the strength of the pound and poor sales of the paper for its plans to cease production in May.

The firm has said that although it hoped some of the job losses out of the 220-strong workforce would be through voluntary means, some compulsory redundancies were inevitable.

The threat of more job losses comes just six months after 75 jobs were cut at the plant blamed on the mill's poor financial performance.

Two years ago a £40million investment was made in the Feniscowles plant to enable it to produce a specialist high quality coated paper in addition to the lower quality cast coated paper it already made.

A Darwen firm and its workforce have become the latest victims of the struggling wallpaper industry.

Decorflair, which used to be known as Belgrave Engraving, is to close its Almond Street, Darwen site with the loss of 14 jobs.

The firm specialises in engraving and embossing cylinders mainly used to produce wallpaper.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.