Sad news last night that Buckfast Spinners, part of Axminster carpets, is to close. Buckfast have supplied the yarns for Axminster carpets for 60 years and employed 100 local people in the process. I note that the Axminster carpets website still describes it as a full raw wool to yarn plant but in truth, it stopped scouring wool a couple of years ago and just concentrated on spinning and dyeing.
The parent company has already sold off Devonia Sheepskins, also in Buckfastleigh and saved the jobs of 20 locals in the process. It’s a real blow to the town that the Spinning Company has to go. Employment prospects in the area are poor and travelling out to larger centres will be the only option. All the expertise will be lost with many employees having three generations of experience in yarn manufacture. Those skills are precious. At a recent textile conference I attended, skills shortage was one of the biggest stumbling blocks mentioned as companies try to expand and develop here in the UK. I hope some of these suddenly cut loose can find work up north with other spinners in Yorkshire and Lancashire.
One hundred jobs are to be retained in Axminster itself and, by the sound of it, there is a buyer waiting in the wings for a smaller, leaner company. I speculate that it may concentrate on the luxury, one-off designer carpets made for particular clients and places. Moving up market and trading on the British reputation for quality, craftsmanship, heritage etc has worked brilliantly well for many others in the textile manufacturing world so it’s a possibility.
Whatever happens, I wish Axminster and its rump of employees well in the future. For the poor folk of Buckfast, I wish a job. Any job. And the sense of worth and value that goes with it.
Yes, very sad news. I was watching the report on Spotlight last night, whole families have been affected as many fathers, sons, mothers and daughters etc were all working there. I hope that the help will be available to help those that have lost their jobs. It’s not just the workers that are affected but the whole economy of Axminster and Buckfast.
By: Elaine Isaac on March 6, 2013
at 4:21 pm
Yes that’s very sad. Here in Oamaru NZ we have had a spinning mill since the late 1800′s. it has only been making carpet yarns for a number of years and was bought out in January. It laid off the 195 employees left working there. It is remploying about 40 of them. I’m very grateful that my dyer son has been offered his job back. I hope they can pull the company around. My sympathies with Buckfast. I’m off out to look for a new wool carpet.
By: Doe on March 6, 2013
at 5:53 pm
Everything is connected to everything else. I am sorry to read this news about the changes and the employment prospects. I send good wishes that there are jobs “with the sense of worth and value that goes with it” to be had.
By: Diane Shephered-in-the-Making - San Clemente, CA on March 6, 2013
at 6:00 pm
Lesley, this is so sad. Many of these people are no doubt older and would be leaving families and roots to move north and anyway not much room there?
Is there no way that a smallscale enterprise could work as a co-operative alongside the other company, so that facilties stay put. Does HRH know about this or Debora Meaden (from Dragon’s Den)? You have a far better infrastructure down there than anywhere else in UK. I am thinking of John Arbon too as a possible co-partner. Groups like this need someone to Mentor them through the shock to see what they can offer in a different context.
I dont know the remit of Buckfast Spinners: what throughput, weight etc. but many fashion geeks/students/Craft Projects/Extreme Knitters look for cones of heavyweight carpet type yarns to work with………we use them in our Sheep to Shawl Workshops. We have a place called the Loom Mill up here which stocks ends of cone runs and they say they are finding it increasingly difficult to source that kind of yarn.
I am happy to liaise with them if it would be of any assistance.
best regards Julia
By: Julia Desch on March 12, 2013
at 9:41 am
Far too big a set up for small scale local solutions unfortunately. Small is not always best either in textile production. Too late now. Actually there seems to be plenty of work down here for people – just not in textile production.
By: devonfinefibres on March 12, 2013
at 10:07 am