Officials from the Transport and General Workers Union fear the closure of the battery plant could eventually lead to hundreds of redundancies in Market Harborough in Leicestershire.

The union says the 180 jobs at Tungstone Battery are just the tip of the iceberg, and when suppliers and other local businesses cut back the total could reach 500 lost jobs.

A Tungstone spokesman said a downturn in trading in 2001 had led to the job losses.

"We have successfully implemented aggressive cost cutting measures, which have provided some relief, but we have not been able to sell the operation," a Tungstone statement said.

Oriental competition

There has been a factory on the Tungstone site for 104 years and the firm has been making batteries since 1925.

Competition from battery producers in the Far East is another reason for the shutdown, company officials said.

One Tungstone worker said: "We expected something, but not as harsh as this."

We had expected it to keep going for a couple of years."