AN ADHESIVES firm devastated by a fire last year is now back up and running.

Itac's factory at Bankfield Mills, Stoneclough, is now producing the majority of the company's products once again after converting a warehouse into a temporary production facility.

One worker had to be airlifted to hospital when the blaze broke out last April during the production process, but is now back at work after suffering seven per cent burns to his body.

Paul Armitt, Itac's managing director, says its a relief to see the company, which was set up in 1902, fully operational again, after relying on the generosity of other firms to fulfil their orders after the fire.

He said: "It has taken us a few months to get back up to full speed with the machinery that we were able to salvage. We are now able to produce about 65 per cent of our total sales at Radcliffe, though we still have support from third party manufacturers. We are in control of our own destiny again, with 15 machines running five days a week.

"The scale of the damage was enormous and we have put procedures in place to make sure this doesn't happen again. Our products are highly flammable and we cope with those dangers every day, but unfortunately we were caught out that day in April.

"One of the fundamentals things we discovered in our own investigation into this was that we were complacent, which is something that can creep in when you have been operating since 1902. We weren't quite as rigorous with the mixing procedure as we might have been. We have helped other firms who have had fires in the past and when we had our disaster they were quick to help us too."

Itac has secured planning permission to rebuild its main factory, and hope to start work next month with a view to completing the renovation by October.

Mr Armitt added: "A lot of people have put a lot of effort into getting us back on our feet. I'm the fourth generation of my family in this business and I've seen fires before, but a lot of our staff thought that their jobs would be gone.

"They had never seen anything like this before, they had never seen a colleague run out of the building on fire. Seeing your workplace destroyed like that is not a normal experience."