Horsham firm rise from ashes

Phoenix Engineering Ltd has 13 company directors, 12 of whom were made redundant from Punctual Precision Tooling in Blatchford Road in May.

"What really cut people up was that this wasn't the recession that put us out of business, we had some good orders and a wide customer base," said Russel Clark.

The company's former boss retired last year and the firm was bought by another company. It went into receivership six months later after 25 years successful trading, with all the staff facing the dole queue.

"It's a bit of a clich," continued Russel, who had worked with the company for 25 years, "but when you have worked all your life in a trade, to find yourself out of work all of a sudden is quite devastating, not just for you but obviously for your family too."

But within a month Russel, aged 47, and 12 others were the proud new company directors of Phoenix Engineering Ltd, having all paid an equal share to found the new business.

Phoenix is operating in a smaller area of the same premises, and has taken on the lease of its extensive range of specialist machinery which is used to design and engineer the tools that make items like Robinson's Fruit Squash bottle lids and similar items for brands including Persil, Mars, Nescafe and Marmite.

"It's in at the deep end, but exciting," said Geoff Laker, 43, who has worked at the site for 21 years. "I am enjoying it as everyone has the same attitude, all get up and go now, it's all down to us."