A QUESTION mark hangs over the future of 60 jobs in Williton after one of the district's biggest employers was declared insolvent this week.

The High Court of Justice in Manchester appointed Rob Robinson and Ian Walker, partners in Begbies Traynor, as joint administrators of CPack Ltd.

Senior manager for the administrators, Gary Lee, said: "The company is insolvent - it cannot pay its debts - so it has sought the protection of the court while it restructures its business."

He said the administrators were trading on the business with a view to putting together a voluntary arrangement or selling the business as a going concern.

"We are currently assessing the viability of the company," he added.

CPack was formed by a merger in January between Contemporary Printers, on Williton's Roughmoor industrial estate, and Avonmouth firm Cannings Packaging Ltd.

It was a move designed to put Contemporary Printers on a more even keel after years of redundancies and cutbacks. Cannings had the greater turnover at £11 million per annum, but Contemporary Printers was more profitable.

One of the workers told the Free Press yesterday: "It's turned out to be a marriage that didn't get off to a good start.

"Everyone at the Williton plant has been working very hard and it's all seemed very healthy. We've been getting orders, turning them around very quickly and there's even been overtime.

"But we don't know what's been going on at the other plants so, in a way, this has come as a surprise.

"We've been down this kind of road many times before, though, and as always we're just getting on with it. There's no point in acrimony.

"We're apprehensive, of course, but also hoping that something can be salvaged."

Both companies employed around 60 people and had been created through management buy-outs.

Contemporary Printers was formed when managing director Howard Berry led a management buy-out of the former Protective Papers Ltd in 1989.

Two years later, it relocated from Watchet to £2 million purpose-built premises on the Roughmoor estate.

Cannings, producers of plain film and bags, was once part of British Cellophane Ltd (BCL), in Bridgwater, which then became Courtaulds plc.

It was set up as an offshoot of BCL to use side reels and waste product from cellulose film and became an independent business after a management buy-out in 1991.

At its peak, Contemporary Printers employed 100, but the workforce was gradually reduced and in 1999 staff accepted a temporary 25 per cent cut in wages to save their jobs and the firm's future.

In November last year, after 16 weeks of cutbacks, the workforce was returned to full pay and by the end of the year business was up on New Year 1998-99.

Mr Berry has been on sick leave for some time.