BOSSES at Redfearns want to sell off more than a quarter of its glassworks site for housing - but at the same time they are asking for land to buy.
Production at the Monk Bretton plant, recently renamed Rockware, is falling and bosses say the existing land is not needed.
Last week rockware's Irish owners, the ardagh Group, announced it was axing 200 jobs because there was not enough work. Just months earlier 127 staff were made redundant for the same reason.
An application for uotline planning permission to put 350 houses on the Burton Road side of the works will be put to the council next month. Commercial development director Nigel Pritchard told the Chronicle that money raised from the sale will be invested in the remainder of the site, on the other side of the railway line, in order to keep the business viable.
Ardagh is also in preliminary negotiations with the council to buy land next to its works - along the route of the proposed Cudworth bypass. Council leader Steve Houghton says the planning application will be treated as any other but admits the council is taking a close interest in Rockware's long-term strategy.
