A MONTH-long consultation over job losses at Goodacre Carpets Limited has led to 11 job losses.

A further six staff have taken voluntary redundancy from the Aynam Road firm and two have opted for early retirement, bringing the total leaving to 19.

Originally it was said that as many as 35 jobs could go at the carpet manufacturer in the move to bring production of Axminster in line with sales levels.

Next week (Monday), the workforce returns after the holiday break to a five-day week working again after shifts had been cut to three days to curb over-production.

Chief executive Mike Cornish said: "Morale has held over the last month. It is obviously a difficult time for everybody. This consultation period involved a lot of uncertainty for people and that uncertainty is now over and morale is now good and we continue to be very optimistic about the future. We have a lot of new designs, new carpets and new products we are working on and a lot of very good things coming up."

He added: "I have been very impressed with the workforce here, it's excellent. It is very sad, we are losing some very good people and are left with some very good people. The atmosphere has been absolutely first class with much interest and attention being paid to what we have to do as a team in the future to make sure the business succeeds. Everybody seems determined to make that happen."