MORE than 100 workers at a Lymington factory have lost their jobs just weeks before Christmas.

Pizza-maker Doughology has laid off 113 staff after losing its building at the Gordleton Industrial Estate.

Many of the employees had previously worked at Webbs, which closed with the loss of 500 jobs less than two years ago.

One such worker is Eddie Curtis. He told the Daily Echo: "We're all quite shell-shocked, especially for us who worked at Webbs. We can't quite believe it's happening to us all over again. It's devastating.

"I would say about 50 per cent of the workforce here were previously employed at Webbs.

"You wonder where the job opportunities are, especially in the New Forest.

"It's especially hard with Christmas round the corner. We don't know what we're going to do.

"The directors took over the company and ran it as a management and they bent over backwards to keep the company going."

Doughology's managing director Steven Jose paid tribute to his staff.

"We as directors took over in January. The company was losing four to five million pounds a year. It was an opportunity to rescue it from administration.

"We had a project where we had to halve the overheads and double the turnover but unfortunately we ran out of money.

"We can't the sell the business as a going concern because we no longer have a building.

"We got to the point we were breaking even and would have been in profit by February or March.

"We had people interested in helping the business but in the end they couldn't come to an agreement with the landlord.

"We started off as a small business in New Milton in 1985 before moving to the Gordleton Industrial Estate and the business just grew and grew.

"And the news couldn't have come at a worse time because we have just heard we have won contracts with Somerfield and Weight Watchers.

"Our staff have been absolutely brilliant, especially over the last year, helping us to introduce these changes. It's very sad for all of us."