THE administrator appointed to handle the affairs of a dental laboratory has pledged to help up to 115 staff claim redundancy payments.

Workers at Acodent in Little Lever were told to leave the Stopes Road building on Wednesday and have received no pay for the last month’s work.

This was the day before Robert Adamson and Tim Askham of Leeds-based accountant Mazars were appointed joint administrators to Alpha Zahn, trading as Acodent.

“Acodent had run into financial difficulties and the company announced the majority of staff had lost their jobs,” a statement from Mazars said. “Staff did not receive the salary payments due to them on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, given the current state of the company’s finances any outstand wages will not be paid.

“This is clearly very distressing and upsetting for the former staff and their families and we will be assisting them in claiming redundancy payments from the government’s national insurance fund.

“It is still too early to comment on the future of Acodent and we are currently looking at a number of options.”

Acodent, run by Peter Smith and his wife Aileen, is the biggest dental laboratory in the UK, specialising in crowns, bridges, implants and prosthetics for dentists here, in Ireland and in Europe.

Disgruntled ex-staff have called The Bolton News to voice their dissatisfaction over the way they have been treated.

As reported in yesterday’s edition, Mrs Smith has vowed to “recover what we can”.

“We have been running this business for 25 years and it has taken everything we’ve got,” she said.