BARBECUE manufacturer, Rectella International Ltd, has bought Burnley's former Belling factory - and raised hopes of a major new jobs boost for the town.

The Clitheroe-based company, which sets sausages sizzling from Scandanavia to Singapore with its Bar-Be-Quick instant barbecues, is carrying out a major refit at the 160,000 sq ft Heasandford Industrial Estate plant and will use the factory as its main distribution centre.

The company has around 50 employees and says it is coming to Burnley to cope with ever-increasing demand for its foil and charcoal trays but refused to comment further.

Rectella also has a large plastics business which accounts for the remainder of its 110 employees.

The single-storey Burnley factory on a 6.5 acre site at Bancroft Road has been closed for the past two years.

More than 300 jobs were lost in 1992 when cooker parts manufacturers, Compound Engineering, closed following the collapse of parent company, Belling.

Some 75 jobs were saved when a new firm Compound Engineering (Burnley) was formed to carry out former Belling contracts.

Jobs appeared secure as the company announced it had won a £3 million contract to supply gas fire parts to Valor Heating.

But by the end of 1994 more jobs went as the firm ran into trouble and the plant eventually closed.

Blackburn-based estate agents and chartered surveyors, Trevor Dawson, acted for the vendor in the latest sale of the factory and site.

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