A FACTORY in York which provided jobs for disabled people has been put up for sale, it was today revealed.

Alison Henderson, senior shop steward for the GMB union in York, said the Remploy plant - where there are 51 employees - off Layerthorpe Road was now on the market for offers over £300,000.

Remploy is consulting with workers on their options, with the factory set to close at the end of March after the organisation transfers some of its resources to finding work for employees in mainstream employment.

The organisation said none of the workers would be made redundant against their choice, and that it would find those who chose to remain with Remploy jobs with local employers.

Ms Henderson said: "At the moment it's hard to place anybody - there's no work. Some of the workers have really bad learning difficulties - they're the ones who it's hard to place. We don't know where we're going to be placed after March 6 - we don't know anything.

"The workers are very scared and you're talking about people with really bad learning difficulties."

She said most of the workers were staying under the "Remploy umbrella" - whereby the organisation would find them a new job with a local company.

But she said the employees were choosing to do this because they would otherwise find it a struggle to secure new employment.

She said one worker was on a trial at ASDA and another was working in a charity shop.

Remploy says closing the York factory means it can quadruple the number of disabled people it supports into work.

A Remploy spokeswoman said it would find those workers who chose to stay with the organisation jobs with local employers - and that they could opt to retain Remploy's terms and conditions if they wanted to.

She said there were 106 vacancies within 12 miles of the York factory - and Remploy was planning to place those workers in those positions.

She said the employees also had the choice of taking early retirement - if they were of the right age - and that the workers could opt to take voluntary redundancy with support in seeking new employment.

"Nobody will be made compulsorily redundant and everybody will have the support they need for as long as they need it," she said.