TRADES union leaders have launched a rescue bid to save more than 150 jobs at a Sheppey factory.

Paul Maloney, district officer of the General Municipal Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union (GMBU), has told staff from Twyford Bathrooms' Queenborough factory that it would take £3 million to save the plant which the owners, Sanitec, plan to run down and close over the next 18 months.

Mr Maloney, addressing an open meeting attended by more than 100 workers at Queenborough Social Club, said union officials had asked Twyford's management to consider the rescue package to save the plant's 161 jobs.

He said £1 million of the rescue deal could come from savings being made at the plant, another £1 million from Sanitec, with the rest from outside funding bodies.

He urged local businesses, the press and local councillors to campaign to save the jobs at Queenborough which was in an unemployment 'black spot' of Kent.

Local MP Derek Wyatt, who was unable to attend Thursday night's meeting, has asked DTI ministers to hold talks with Twyford's management and is seeking financial and supporting training packages if redundancies go ahead.

The company currently plans a phased closure, with some staff leaving at the end of April, some at the end of the October and final closure in June next year. Mr Maloney said the Queenborough plant was competitive in terms of product price and quality.

Union officials had asked Twyford's to consider selling the plant as a going concern or to agree to a buy-out so that staff could run the plant themselves, but Mr Maloney said the company said it wanted to keep its own brand.

GMBU officials are due to continue negotiations with Twyford's management on Wednesday. Mr Maloney said he was convinced that Sanitec, a European-based sanitaryware manufacturer which bought Twyford Bathrooms in January 2001, had purchased the plant to shut it down. He added: "Unless we can bring some political and economic pressure on the company, we are not going to change their minds on it."

Johnny Dobbyn, a spokesman for Twyford's, denied that Sanitec had bought the business in order to shut down its Queenborough plant.

The company planned to develop Twyford's northern plant at Alsager, near Stoke, so there was no question of closing the UK operation, he added.