Around 680 Safestyle workers lose jobs after window firm enters administration

Administrators for Safestyle have said the business has made around 680 of its workers redundant after it fell into administration.

Interpath Advisory said around 70 of the door and window maker’s 750 employees would be kept on in the short term to help wind down the business.

It comes after Safestyle said on Friday it intended to appoint administrators after failing to find a buyer.

The Bradford-headquartered business has a manufacturing site in Wombwell, near Barnsley and 42 branches and depots across the country.

The company failed after facing a series of pressures, including runaway inflation and poor consumer confidence, administrators said.

The unseasonably warm weather in September also dented demand for its products.

Video posted by the GMB union from outside the company’s Barnsley site showed what appear to be workers protesting and holding up signs asking “where’s the money gone?”

A spokesman for GMB campaigns North East, Yorkshire & Humber said: “Safestyle UK workers in Barnsley (are) devastated by the news of (the) factory closure and so are we. They stand in a soaking wet car park waiting to hear whether they’ll get paid.”

GMB organiser Bob McNeill later said: “Loyal Safestyle UK workers have been treated absolutely abysmally. They’ve been made redundant with immediate effect and told they won’t get another penny from the company.

“Bosses didn’t even have the decency to let them into the building out of the pouring rain.”

Stephanie Peacock, the Labour MP for Barnsley East, said: “Workers have literally been told in the car park, in the pouring rain, that they’ve lost their jobs.

“It’s absolutely appalling behaviour that anyone can be treated in this way.