Thurrock Council's cabinet has backed plans for an employee buyout of its window factory in Grays.

A year ago this month the council agreed to sell the factory after agreeing that its ten-year programme of replacing windows in council homes should be accelerated.

This left the factory with the prospect of no work after March 2004.

Coun Peter Maynard told last week's meeting of the cabinet that there had been little response to adverts attempting to sell the factory, on the Curzon Drive industrial estate, except for the proposed buy-out.

The new company will be called Thameside Windows Ltd and its shares will only be available to employees - who will have to sell them back to the company if they leave.

The company will pay a lease of £484,000 per year to the council, out of which the authority will set up a fund of £400,000 to cater for any future redundancies.

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Published Monday January 14, 2002