RIBBLE Valley conservatory makers Ultraframe has revealed plans to shed jobs at its Clitheroe headquarters.

It has emerged the company the largest manufacturer in the Ribble Valley could make up to 15 people redundant by the end of the year.

The firm, which currently employs around 450 people at its Clitheroe base, described the potential job losses as improvements' to its operations.

The news, which allayed rumours in the town of larger scale redundancies, follows a small number of job losses in the wake of four profit warnings in 2004.

Sales and marketing director Nick Brown said the staff at risk had been informed.

He said: "There are a small number of redundancies that have been notified to the workforce. The final figure could be anywhere between nought and 15.

"The jobs in question are all in our factory, the operations part of the business, and a decision is likely to be made in the second half of the financial year.

"We have told the people involved that there are improvements that we are looking to make and that, clearly, this is going to affect them.

"Any rumours that there are to be large scale redundancies are totally unfounded and I don't know where they could have come from."

Two years ago Ultraframe revealed that its sales over the previous 12 months had fallen by 19 per cent and profits fell to around £12 million £6 million down on the previous year.

Competition from rival firms was blamed on the financial downturn.