THE last remnants of East Lancashire Paper Mill, which closed in March with 180 job losses, are to disappear.

Receivers have sold the 139-year-old site to a rival paper firm which is set to remove all the equipment from the building in Church Street East.

Bosses at St Regis Paper admitted they had originally looked at the prospect of buying the doomed Radcliffe company from the receivers as a going concern, but decided against the move. Once all the machinery is taken away, St Regis, whose headquarters are in Berkshire, will decide what to do with the site.

Mr Geoff Hill, commercial director, said: "Our prime intention was to acquire the equipment at East Lancs and we ended up with the site at the same time." Receivers had stipulated that any sale of the machinery should embrace the whole of the mill. It has now been sold for an undisclosed sum.

Mr Hill added: "When the receivers couldn't sell the business as a going concern, they advertised bids for equipment and the site.

"We were interested in acquiring the equipment, we put in a bid and we got it as a package."

Asked if St Regis would dispose of the site once the machinery had been removed, he said: "We will look at all the options available to us. We obviously haven't got to that stage yet and it will be about a year. Removing all the equipment is a big job."

Mr Hill said that his company would help maintain the empty mill, ensuring that there was no pollution and the site was safe for those living nearby.

Looking to the future of the mill, he went on: "In due course, we will be talking to planners over what the site could be used for."

Some of the equipment salvaged from the mill will be sold with the remainder being used within St Regis mills. The company operates seven such businesses throughout the UK.

Mr Hill disclosed that his company had examined the prospect of buying the Radcliffe company as a going concern, but ultimately decided against the move because its machinery was unsuitable.

East Lancs Paper Mill shut down in March, a month after receivers Arthur Andersen had put it up for sale.

The company blamed the closure on foreign competition, the strength of sterling and escalating costs of raw materials.