Rubber profile manufacturer Trelleborg Industrial Profiles (Trelleborg / Sweden; www.trelleborg.com) is closing its manufacturing plant in the UK at Minworth, Birmingham. The plant is scheduled to close by the end of 2008 with the loss of up to 55 jobs from a workforce of 70. The site will remain a sales and logistics centre to support the profiles business in the UK and Ireland, which, the company says, will now have a better cost structure to suit the demands of UK industry in automotive, construction and general industrial applications.

The six extrusion lines at Minworth will be transferred to existing profiles operations in Germany, Sweden and, possibly, Poland. The plant’s closure follows the shutdown of a complementary operation in Telford, UK last year. Trelleborg says there already is regular movement of product between manufacturing sites in Europe.