A MAJOR furniture factory in Flintshire is set to close down, its parent company has confirmed.

The Westbridge 3 site based at Deeside Industrial Park is set to shut in what will be a consolidation move with the Westbridge 2 site in Flint.

Many of the employees will transfer across to that nearby site, but parent company Belfield Group has stated that the move could still result in up to 78 redundancies being made.

The Deeside site will remain part of the business, with a view to re-opening in future if 'conditions improve', Belfield Group say.

A statement from them read: "Westbridge will be consolidating all production into a single site facility, with all work transferring from WB3 into WB2 by the end of 2024.

"WB2 will become our sole manufacturing facility, retaining significant capacity through our proposed use of shift patterns, although we will still be retaining our WB3 facility, with a view to re-starting operations in this facility in the future when market conditions improve and volume demand returns."

TOP STORIES 

Commenting on the reasons for the closure, the Belfield Group added: "Westbridge have faced several impacts over the past year that have led to this decision. The uncertainty in consumer confidence combined with supply-chain and inflation pressures created a difficult trading environment in 2024, an environment that has impacted the whole industry.

"In addition, M&S’s decision to exit the ‘bulky furniture’ market has resulted in us accelerating transformation plans to mitigate the loss of a significant portion of our traditional intake.

"The decision to move to a single manufacturing site allows us to accelerate our 'factory of the future’ concept providing us solid foundations for growth, whilst rationalising cost to ensure the business can complement its superior design and quality with competitive prices.

"We believe this additional resilience will ensure the long-term success of our business."

The statement added that Westbridge are 'taking great steps' to ensure that there are no impacts to customers during the transfer of work from WB3 to WB2.

It says: "It is our intention to transfer work in stages over the next two months, so we drip feed out of WB3 and drip feed into WB2, ensuring our skilled workforce transfers at the appropriate time alongside all necessary stocks, componentry and customer specific instructions on a customer by customer basis.

"This step by step approach will ensure that each customer is treated as a stand-alone transfer project, with each subsequent project then beginning once the previous project has been completed and production is running with no impacts."