UK tree 'shortage' shuts sawmill

Gwyddelwern Saw Mill has debts of up to £500,000

A shortage of felled trees has been blamed for a Denbighshire sawmill shutting its gates and laying off 52 employees.

Gwyddelwern Saw Mill, near Corwen, has ceased trading ahead of a meeting on 27 March when it will go into liquidation. Insolvency practitioner Martin Williamson said initial reports showed the firm had debts up to £500,000.

He said: "It is a real shame. It was a perfectly viable firm, the problem was getting hold of the raw timber."

Staff have said they were called to a meeting on Wednesday afternoon and told they were being made redundant.

David Williams, 60, of Bala, who joined the firm in November, said the closure had come out of the blue.

It was trying to get back on its feet but apparently we have a national shortage of raw lumber Insolvency practitioner Martin Williamson

He said: "They wanted a fork lift driver. I don't feel very good about it to be honest with you. All of us have got bills to be paid."

Ds Insolvency Services, which has an office in Shrewsbury, is handling the closure.

Mr Williamson said the firm's directors had told him they had been unable to source enough raw timber from the UK to keep the sawmill running.

He said: "It has struggled for a number of years. A new owner bought it about 12 months ago and ploughed in quite a lot of money, to repair machinery and put new machinery in.

Russia

"It was trying to get back on its feet but apparently we have a national shortage of raw lumber.

"The sawmill processes round logs. They process them from log to planks. They literally could not get enough of the raw logs to put in the sawmill."

The sawmill relied on mainly UK sources for its lumber, while other mills had access to tree imported from Russia, he said.

The remaining 37 staff were made redundant on Wednesday, he said, following 15 a couple of weeks previously.

The announcement comes just two weeks after clothing firm Akroyd announced it was cutting 66 jobs in nearby Bala.