MORE than 20 workers have lost their jobs after a Bury company went into administration.

And a huge question marks hangs over the future of Webb Street-based Elantic Engineering whose chairman is Bury FC director Mr Jim Lomas. Production has ceased and the administrators from Hollins-based DTE have made the vast majority of production and office staff redundant. It is understood only two or three staff remain.

In its heyday Elantic, whose core business is the design and manufacture of paper machinery systems, employed 60. This number dwindled to around 25 before the firm went into administration.

One of the casualties is Mr Pat Bailey, Elantic's chargehand and site supervisor, who has lost his job after working with the firm for 27 years. He said: "A few weeks before the administration, we certainly had work and were turning some of it away. We sub-contracted a lot outside and were involved in general engineering jobs. Some of the work already in the workshop was finished before production halted."

Mr Bailey added: "What happened has certainly surprised us. When the administrators came in we were told they were going to sell the company as a going concern and actually had interested buyers. But I don't see that happening now."

He said that after new locks were fitted to the front entrance gates, some workers were forced to climb over the fence. Administrator Mr Kevin Murphy was unavailable for comment yesterday.