Pensioners receive payout (From Witney Gazette)

Pensioners receive payout

6:07pm Wednesday 23rd January 2008 in Witney By David Horne

FORMER workers of a collapsed firm have finally got their first company pension payments - after a four-year campaign.

John Brooks, Tony Clapton and John Parrott met up to celebrate money going into their bank accounts from the Government's Financial Assistance Scheme.

All three, along with two others who have also received their first payments, are ex-workers for Witney blanket manufacturer Early's, which closed in 2002.

The company pension scheme collapsed and it has taken until now for them to receive a rescue package payout.

Mr Brooks, 68, of Westfield Road, Witney, led the campaign and has been paid £210 on top of his married couple's state pension of about £700 a month.

He said: "This is just what I've been after these last four years. It's only 80 per cent of what we should have got after all those years of paying into the company pension, but it's a victory."

Mr Clapton, 69, of Heath Lane, Bladon, and Mr Parrott, 65, of Beanhill Road, Ducklington, are also receiving the same amount after more than 35 years in the scheme.

There are also an estimated 120 ex-employees not yet of retirement age who will be covered by the same guarantee.

Witney MP and Conservative leader David Cameron, who has backed the pensioners' campaign, said: "It's very good news, I'm glad that the promise made to these pensioners has finally been kept."