Heartbreak as historic Black Country manufacturing firm Sturge Industries closes with 17 jobs lost

A Dudley manufacturing firm boss has told of her heartbreak at having to close a business that has traded for more than 100 years, with the loss of 17 jobs.

Sturge Industries, in Narrowboat Way, Brierley Hill, Dudley, has ceased production amid challenging conditions which have made continuing with the business untenable.

Founded in 1925, the company started out supplying engineering products but in 1976 Sturge acquired Birmingham Associated Chain Co Ltd and started to manufacture ball chain - transforming from a UK supplier into a leading European manufacturer.

Specialising in producing bead chain and ball chain in mild steel, stainless steel, brass and plastic - which is largely used in window blinds - the business had customers in more than 30 countries, ranging from Europe, to the Far East and to North America.

Tough trading conditions, however, over the last few years have hit hard and the difficult decision was taken to wind down the business - which was closing for good at midday today.

Jo Haden-Thompson, general manager at Sturge, blamed rising costs, government quotas and a lack of support for UK manufacturing as factors leading to the company’s demise.

She said the increase in the national minimum wage, US tariffs and Brexit have all had a detrimental impact on the long-running business - despite efforts to cut costs - and as a result 17 members of staff were being made redundant as a result of the company’s closure.

She said the company has been “struggling for the last three to four years” and a number of things have compounded to put the “final nails in the coffin”.

She said: “Manufacturing in the UK is just struggling anyway. It absolutely breaks my heart to see it. But when I speak to other companies, they're in a very similar boat as well.

“The government is just not helping.”

She branded the increase in the National Insurance payment that employers have to fork out as “ridiculous” and added: “The governments are also changing the quotas of metals into the UK to try and encourage people to buy from the UK, but there's no metal companies left in the UK - steel manufacturers, so we have to now pay more money to get the material into the UK, which obviously again increases the overheads.”

“Customers are buying from the likes of China so that's not helped us. The government's not doing anything to help British manufacturing companies buy from the UK. We can't compete with them.

“Manufacturing costs overall have gone up, so you've got gas, electric, just everything, because everybody's putting the bills up. But as manufacturing companies we can't charge the customers more - because the customers will just buy even more from Asia.”

She said as a result of the US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump the company has lost business in America and that Brexit “didn’t help UK manufacturing companies”.

“We've lost a lot of Irish customers,” she said - adding: “If you look at all this, it's got nothing to do with how a company's run. It's the law, the regulation and the costs that we have to pay.

“It absolutely breaks my heart to think manufacturing is a dying breed here in England.”

She said those creating the policies affecting UK manufacturers “don’t live in the real world” and she added: “They need to come on site and see the difficult impact it has on companies and the lives of 17 people who just got made redundant”.

She told how one employee would have marked 40 years with the company next Monday - and a machinist who has the shortest length of service has also notched up 25 years with Sturge.

Attempts to diversify the business have proven unsuccessful, she said - adding: “I took over as general manager in January last year - so I've been trying to diversify and go into other areas, but it's tough because you’re competing with the likes of Asia. We’ve cut costs wherever we can. I’m good at cutting costs. However, enough's enough, and I'm not doing it anymore.”

She said she was proud to have shut down the business in the “right way” though - giving staff a chance to make future plans and perhaps find alternative employment and sparing customers from wondering if they will get paid.

She said: “We've done it the right way - we've done a solvent wind down. We haven't gone into liquidation or anything like that. We've done it the correct way because we know what a knock-on effect it would be for our suppliers if we couldn't pay them, for our staff because their claims for redundancy would be off the government instead of us. We've done it the right way, which a lot of companies don't.”

And she added: “We're lucky that the majority of us, through contacts, have got another role, but there's still some people that haven't - and that also really breaks my heart.”