FACTORY bosses have revealed when a Barrow site will close its doors for the final time.

Sovereign Chemicals in Park Road Industrial Estate is due to shut after 60 years of operation.

In October, the global glue manufacturer Bostik announced plans to close Sovereign Chemicals in Barrow by the end of December after 56 years.

The Park Road site's 16 employees will be made redundant before the end of the year, factory bosses have confirmed.

Bostik, which is headquartered in France, employs around 6,000 people across 40 countries.

The Barrow facility was founded in 1965 and since 1987 the firm has held the royal warrant for its products.

The factory has since been listed for sale online for £1.5m.

A spokesman for Bostik said the manufacturer was working with an estate agent to find a potential buyer for the site.

A spokesman has confirmed that the facility will be closed by January 7 2022 and staff will finish working at the facility on December 31.

In 2000, Sovereign Chemicals was bought by Total which was later acquired by French firm Arkema in 2015.

A spokesman for Arkema said: "Arkema has undertaken a UK wide distribution network review of all its entities and, as a result, it has been decided that the Sovereign Chemicals warehouse function will close and be transferred to a third party logistics provider based in Stafford.

"This decision affects the viability of maintaining the Sovereign Chemicals site at Barrow.

"Consequently, the Barrow site will be closed and the customer services roles based at Sovereign Chemicals will be transferred to Arkema owned, Bostik UK’s head office in Stafford.

"This decision means that we have entered a period of consultation with the 16 employees affected by the restructuring. As part of the consultation process, we are actively looking at ways to redeploy as many employees as possible into other areas of the Arkema UK business.

"While these conversations are ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment any further.”

Bostik employs 4,700 people in its production facilities and sales operations in 40 countries. Of 51 production sites worldwide, four are facilities in the UK: Stafford, Leicester, Dalton in North Yorkshire and Barrow.

In July 2018, Bostik revealed manufacturing at the Barrow factory would cease, in order to obtain a 'cost advantage', with the loss of 11 jobs.