Engineering jobs under threat (From Witney Gazette)

Engineering jobs under threat

8:00am Tuesday 28th November 2006 in Witney By Andrew Smith

UP to 40 jobs are under threat at an engineering company in Witney.

Staff at BGM Cryogenic Engineering, in Range Road, Windrush Park, turned up for work yesterday morning only to be told to pack up their tools and go home again.

Workers were unclear as to the reasons why their jobs appear to have been axed but most went straight to the job centre to sign up for benefits.

One worker said: "Everybody was told they were being made redundant and to pick up their tools and leave.

"No one knows anything but it must be something to do with the cash flow as we were supposed to have been paid on Friday but the money never showed up in the bank.

"We are waiting for letters to give us the full explanation of what has happened."

No one from the management team at the plant was available for comment.

BGM makes specialist equipment for the cryogenics industry relating to the production of large-scale superconducting magnetics used in the construction of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners used in hospitals around the world.

Key customers included Oxford Instruments which recently closed its plant at Eynsham and Siemens Magnet Technology, also based at Eynsham.

The company was started by Michael Sparks in 1984 and moved to its 20,000 sq ft purpose-built facility in 2000.

Mr Sparks is understood to have retired a couple of years ago and been replaced as managing director by Brenda Cawthorne in 2005. Former finance director Ms Cawthorne is believed to have been with the company for almost its entire 22-year history.