JOBS are set to go at a Huddersfield manufacturing firm.

Card clothing company ECC Group is expected to close its Plover Road, Lindley, works and move employees to smaller premises at Cleckheaton.

The move would bring job losses as the company - which makes industrial combing items - seeks to cut costs to help it compete with rivals in India and China.

ECC Group has about 120 employees at Lindley and Cleckheaton, with about two-thirds of them at Plover Road.

The company announced eight redundancies two weeks ago, following a decision to move a small part of the UK operations to its factory in China.

ECC Group chief executive Chris Malley said the Huddersfield site was too big for the company's needs. He added: "We are considering whether it makes sense to merge the two sites together.

"At the moment, our preference is to move to Cleckheaton.

"We have been looking at potential new sites in the Huddersfield area, but there is nothing available."

Mr Malley said the company had not set a timescale for moving to the Prospect Road site in Cleckheaton, adding: "It could be in five months or five years."

But he said: "We cannot guarantee there will be no job losses, because the idea behind the move is to save costs."

ECC Group, part of the Wakefield-based Carclo Group, makes products for the textile industry and sells most of them to the Far East.

Mr Malley said the company was expanding its China factory to meet demand there.

The move echoes fears for the former Hopkinsons valves business at Birkby.

Glasgow-based engineering group Weir is considering moving its valves operation because the Britannia Works site on Wheathouse Road is now too big.

Weir is carrying out a major review of the business, which is expected to be concluded this spring.