A family-owned Walsall-based wood turning company formed 175 years ago is to close due to “no contest” competition from China.
S Tomkins & Son Ltd has seen business plummet in the face of cheap Chinese imports and has decided to cease trading as from May 27 after efforts to sell the factory failed.
Director Arthur Tomkins, a life president of the Wood Turners Association, said: “We have always been a very prudent sort of company and have a bit of a reserve, but it is no good spending years seeing that disappear.”
Mr Tomkins, who is 92, said the company, started by his grandfather, used to manufacture large quantitites of small wooden handles. “We made three quarters of a million handles a year for gardening hand tools and 15,000 handles and knobs a week for Swan saucepans,” he said.
“But that has really dipped to almost nothing over the past 10 years. We used to employ 35 people, and now there are just 10 or 11 left.”
The company announced its pending closure in February and was instantly inundated with orders. Mr Tomkins believes customers panicked as there are only two or three companies left in the country carrying out similar work.
“In a week we had more than three months of work come in,” he said. “But we have had to turn it away as we no longer have the staff to deal with the orders. As far as China is concerned, it is no contest.”
