Lochcarron of Scotland announce redundancies in Selkirk

Fourteen more workers in the Scottish Borders face redundancy after a textiles company, with a base in Selkirk, becomes the latest to fall victim to the pandemic.

Lochcarron of Scotland have announced plans to cut jobs at its Waverley Mill site, blaming the impact coronavirus is having on markets both at home and abroad.

The job cuts will be made across different departments of the company.

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Managing Director, Dawn Robson-Bell, said: " Over the last few months we have put in place safe working practices around Covid-19 so that we have been able to work with reduced staffing levels to complete valuable orders however, these have not been sufficient for us to operate our production continuously or at full capacity."

"The almost complete loss of the Scottish tourist market this year and the likelihood it will not return until well into 2021 is devastating for the Scottish tourist industry.

"As with most years, we had geared up for the start of the season in March however, our stocks remain here in Selkirk with little or no chance of these being needed anytime this year.

"Balancing costs at this time and going forward is crucial to the future of Lochcarron and unfortunately, it is with much regret that we have had to make the hard decision to review staffing levels in Selkirk and the outcome will result in the region of 14 redundancies across a number of areas of the company.

"With this restructuring of staffing levels and other cost savings in place we anticipate this will secure the business and jobs over the coming months through to the time when we will see an increase in orders across the company."