FLAGSHIP Macclesfield furniture store Arighi Bianchi has axed 11 jobs and shut down its curtain-making department.

The redundancies, which amount to ten per cent of the workforce, are a direct result of the housing market freeze hitting showrooms, according to bosses, and have been met with anger by those concerned.

The cull, at the firm’s Sunderland Street premises follows seven job losses in February from across the showroom, cafe and warehouse, leaving a workforce of 100.


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Jobless seamstress Lesley Brough, 50, labelled the move to outsource the work as "the end of an era" for the store and curtain room, which had been operating for 27 years.

Store director Robert Bianchi blamed the closure on a dwindling demand in curtain and fabric sales to property showrooms as a result of the recession.

Mr Bianchi said: "It has been touch and go for the last 18 months. We thought at Christmas we would close the curtain work room, but thought we could make it work and kept it open.

"Unfortunately, in the end, having our own work room proved uneconomical. That’s the top and bottom of it.

"It's something we don’t take any pleasure in doing. We had to face the reality that the housing market isn’t going to improve in the foreseeable future."

The outgoing workers from the curtain showroom have described themselves as "a family" who made "quality products" for Arighi Bianchi.

Mrs Brough, a mum of two, has worked for Arighi as a seamstress for ten-and-a-half years. She lives on Greenhills Close with retired husband Marshall, 65, and said: "It’s sad. Some of the people in the curtain room have been there 20 years. When you work with people for a long time you get very close, and everyone is like a family. It’s the end of an era."