Tenbury Wells plastics factory offices destroyed in fire

More than 75 firefighters were called to tackle an early morning blaze which ripped through offices at a plastics factory, near Ludlow, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage.

The fire destroyed the first floor offices at the Esterform packaging factory in Tenbury Wells after it broke out at 2.25am yesterday. The factory was unaffected and staff returned to work today.

Around 40 staff were working in the plant, which makes bottles for juice drinks, at the time of the fire and had to be evacuated.

The fire lasted for more than two and a half hours and George Sherry, incident commander for Tenbury Wells, said damage to the building could have been "far worse".

Mr Sherry said investigators were trying to establish the cause of the blaze.

He said: "The damage was quite extensive to the office rooms that were directly involved. But it could have been far worse if it had spread across the ceiling or if the ceiling collapsed. It was a very good operation by the first crews on scene who did limit the fire through the rest of the factory.

"People were evacuated but no persons were injured and we managed to salvage a number of items. There was limited disruption to the business because we were able to retain the fire to such a limited area and they were taking deliveries by 9am.

"The fire was very quickly dealt with and the heat and smoke was stopped from going across the building."

Mark Fellowes, the firm's operations director, said 40 members of staff returned to work this morning and it was 'business as usual'.

He added: "I can confirm that the factory, which was unaffected by the fire is back to normal."