MORE than 100 staff at a major leather factory at Ashford face a bleak Christmas after their company announced huge job cuts. Connolly Leather, based on the Orbital Business Park, is currently in discussions with finishing and cutting staff after chairman Joseph Connolly announced up to 110 jobs would have to be shelved.

The company supplies leather to prestige car manufacturers such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Jaguar. The decision will leave a skeleton staff of 50 leather cutters at the plant when the redundancies are made in February next year, just two years after the hi-tech factory was opened.

Mr Connolly blamed the cuts on poor car sales in America, but said the decision had to be made to keep the 123-year-old company alive. He said: "It's the last thing we want to do. It's awful, but we have to survive and the most important thing is to make a quality product."