TROUBLED precision engineering company Metallurgical Processing Limited has finally called in the liquidators, a month after leaving their employees in the dark about the future of their jobs.

The company, which operated out of a site on Stancliffe Street, Blackburn, will go into liquidation tomorrow.

In July, Laser Shapes NW was taken over and the firm renamed Metallurgical Processing Limited (MPL) and it appeared 25 staff jobs had been saved.

But four months later, it became apparent that MPL was unable to establish enough business to keep the company running.

And following a fall-out with site landlords over unpaid rent at the beginning of November, which left workers unable to access the site, director Philip Gostling began the process of dissolving the company.

Metallurgical Processing staff remain locked out of site after landlord padlocks gate

Nick Riley from Cowgill Holloway Business Recovery said: “The director of Metallurgical Processing Limited came to us for advice after the landlords forfeited the lease to the site where the company was based.

“They’d been unsuccessful in trying to keep the business running and on Thursday we will begin the official liquidation process and the company will be dissolved in due course.

“All employees were offered redundancy packages, which they should receive in the next few months.”

Staff at Metallurgical Processing unable to get into work on Monday

Paul Quinn, who worked for MPL said the way they were treated was 'awful'.

He said: “Luckily, the majority of us have managed to get new jobs. However, we’ve not heard anything from the company since we were locked out of the site over a month ago.”

Mr Gostling was unavailable for comment.