N Counties recruits 50
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• Northern Counties, the Wigan-based bodybuilder, which called in the administrators last May, is recruiting about 50 staff to complete £3m worth of orders won in the past few weeks.
London Buses has made the biggest contribution to the order for more than 70 vehicles with 40 double-deckers based on the Scania N113DR. And East Yorkshire Motor Services has helped boost NC's workforce of 130 by ordering 10 Leyland Olympian double-deckers.
The extra staff will be taken on by the end of the year, probably with contracts until July, when the work will be completed. "We don't want the company to be in the same position as when we came in," says administrator Grant Thornton. It had to make around 200 redundancies in the first few weeks of being appointed to sell the 72-year-old business.
Managing director Neil Scales is still optimistic of selling the double-deck specialist, which should reach a turnover of around this year, a 50% decrease on 1990.
The Manchester based administrator has turned down four offers which were too low, but it is still negotiating with one bidder, which is in engineering.
It believes new interest will be shown now in the builder which also has orders for four double-deckers from East Kent Motor Services; five Countybus bodies on the Dennis Dart for Warrington Borough Transport; five Renault S56 minibuses for Leicester Citybus; three Darts for Essex-based D&J International Travel and six fire tenders. Until a buyer has been found, Grant Thornton has pledged to operate Northern Counties up to the end of March 1992.
I=1 Another winner for the London Buses work is Optare, which has taken more than £4m of business for 19 single-deck Deltas and 20 double-deck Spectras. The Leeds-based manufacturer is increasing its workforce by 10 to 285.
Scottish builder Walter Alexander has won an order for 16 PS-type bodied Dennis Lances from London for 1992 delivery.