WORK started to drain the furnace at Philips TV glass factory yesterday, bringing to an end 44 years of production at the site.

The boss of the LG Philips Displays plant at Simonstone, Steve Dobbs, said it was a sad day for all the staff.

A hole was made in the huge furnace at the site, in Simonstone Lane, at 8am, which was then being left for 36 hours for the 500 tonnes of red hot molten glass to drain out of it. It will then take another 10 days for the furnace to cool down.

Mr Dobbs praised staff who had continued to work hard since the announcement in December that the factory - formerly Mullards - was to shut and had even increased production.

He said: "People here have done a very good job and we are very proud of them. We will all be going out with our heads held high.

"It does not surprise me that everyone here has res- ponded so professionally and thoroughly to the closure announcement."

The decision was taken after it was discovered that the factory's biggest customer, a Philips-owned cathode ray tube plant in Aachen, Germany, was also being closed.

The plant employs a total of 400 staff, 265 full-time and 135 temporary and since the closure was announced the company has held job development workshops, business start-up sessions and job fairs. A job shop has been open at the site three days a week.

Employment agencies have also been brought in and training offered through Burnley College.

So far about 50 per cent of the people that were looking for new jobs have been successful.

Mr Dobbs said: "Work still needs to be done to help those still seeking employment but the local job market remains fairly buoyant and our people can offer significant levels of skill and experience to companies in the area."

Barry Charnley, 55, who started as a press operator at the factory when he was 21 and worked his way up to become a production supervisor, said: "It was a major shock when we were told it was going to close, but everyone has really got down to work and done a proper job of finishing it off.

"People have been looking for other work and there has been a lot of help on hand from the company."

Barry, of Victoria Road, Padiham, has re-trained to become a forklift truck driver in a warehouse. Shelagh Westbrook, 51, of Buckingham Drive, in Read, a senior management accountant, who has worked for the firm for 34 years and met her husband Mike, 60, there. She helped to organise a family open day at the plant in February.

She said: "We had tours of the factory and there were exhibitions, including old photographs from over the years. These five months have been really difficult but you have got to go through a process of coming to terms with it and I think the open day really helped a lot of people to do that."

The final phase of the closure, which will involve stripping the plant of machinery, will be finished by September.

The land and building have been bought and will continue to be used for industry, but Mr Dodd would not reveal who the buyer was.