A SILVER lining has begun to emerge from the gloom of job cuts at Wellington’s two largest employers after town councillors held discussions with both company bosses on Wednesday.

A delegation led by Wellington Mayor Cllr Janet Lloyd met virtually with Swallowfield chief executive Matthew Gazzard, followed by a socially distanced meeting with Relyon’s managing director Alan Chapman.

Relyon, which employed 366 people until this month, was put into administration two weeks ago by US owners Alteri Investments just seven months after it announced the purchase of the bedding firm.

A few days earlier Swallowfield’s new owners, Canadian company KDC/One, announced a major restructuring of the cosmetics and beauty products manufacturer which put up to 40 jobs at risk of redundancy.

Last week, Relyon’s administrators PwC made 81 staff redundant – 50 from the shop floor and 31 office staff – without notice after a large chunk of the bed manufacturing operation had been transferred by Alteri to a sister company in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Following Wednesday’s meetings, Cllr Lloyd said that while any job losses in Wellington were unwelcome, the longer-term future of both companies appeared ‘reassuringly positive’.

Cllr Lloyd said the discussions had been candid and broad-ranging with both Swallowfield and Relyon and gave hope that there was a silver lining to the bad news.

For the full story, union reaction and the views of a worker being made redundant, see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.