FORTY jobs are to be axed with the closure of a factory in Lindley.

Members of the 60-strong workforce at Bekaert Carding Solutions - formerly English Card Clothing - were told the news by senior executives from the firm's Belgian parent group yesterday.

Some 40 employees will be made redundant by the end of the year - with the remainder switching to Bekaert's Cleckheaton site.

But it was also said that manufacturing would be transferred overseas.

The site at Prospect Road, Cleckheaton, will handle the tooling, warehousing, shipping and administration work currently done at Lindley.

General manager Neil Purshouse said manufacturing would switch to Asia to help cut costs and improve service to customers in that region.

The company was now consulting trade union officials and employees.

Mr Purshouse said: "The company will make every effort to accept voluntary redundancies from both the Huddersfield and Cleckheaton sites."

English Card Clothing announced a year ago that it was likely to close the Lindley site and move jobs to its smaller premises at Cleckheaton.

At the time, the company - which makes products for the textile industry - said the Lindley site was too big for its needs and it made sense to merge the two sites.

Earlier this month, a planning application was submitted to Kirklees Council to knock down the factory at Plover Mills to make way for up to 90 homes.

The application was submitted by Wakefield-based Carclo, which sold the carding company to Bekaert last summer, but retained ownership of the premises.

The planning application is set to come before the council's planning committee next month.