PETERSFIELD could be facing an industrial recession after further redundancies were announced at another local factory.

Printing company Mids and Horsey, based at Vision Park in Bedford Road, is the latest in a string of factories forced to make cuts.

Tooling Products, based at Langrish and Rams Hill in Petersfield, recently announced the potential loss of 120 jobs.

And 21 staff at ACW, manufacturers of electrical components, have been told that the company will be leaving Petersfield for the new headquarters in Hedge End.

This week The Herald received a letter which was signed by "a now-unemployed local resident".

It said that Mids and Horsey made 16 people redundant at the end of last year and that a further seven also recently lost their jobs.

The managing director at Mids and Horsey, Rob Anstee, confirmed that jobs had been lost as part of a restructuring process to cut costs.

He said: "There have been redundancies here, mainly management, but these have been made to save costs to set up our business to expand further.

"We are not closing and we are not moving. We are staying open in Petersfield."

A further 16 redundancies were made at Mids and Horsey at the end of last year when a call centre, set up two years ago, shut down to tie in with the end of a contract.

Mr Anstee said the manufacturing industry was a tough market at the moment but he believed that smaller businesses could be more suited to cope with change.

"I think that smaller businesses have the ability to react quickly and stave off problems.

"But companies can't just sit down and take a passive approach. They have to pick themselves up and look for business."

The Portsmouth and South East Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, which analyses business in the area, is reporting a slowdown in the manufacturing industry.

Spokesperson Maureen Newton says the service sector is buoyant compared with manufacturing companies, which are struggling.

She said: "It is not a problem unique to this area. There is a gradual decline of manufacturing and an increase in the service sector.

"One of the problems is the level of regulations that are coming from Europe.

"Companies find they are spending more and more time on meeting these requirements and not enough on their business."