Some of the 450 jobs lost with the closure of the Parker Knoll furniture factory may be replaced if new employers take space in a former highways depot.

Oxfordshire County Council has agreed to try and attract new employers to the depot on Banbury Road, Chipping Norton, and thinks the site could be used for a mixture of offices and light industry.

The decision came as 13 Parker Knoll employees received 25-year service awards in a ceremony at the factory.

Parker Knoll's owners, Lancashire-based Silentnight, have sold the 14-acre site to housebuilder Wimpey for a reputed £13m, with the firm's furniture manufacturing operations moving to South Africa and Poland.

The furniture factory, which last year shed more than 200 workers, closes at the end of this year with the loss of the remaining 250 jobs.

Kevin Stone, 41, who has worked for Parker Knoll since he left school, said he had moved to Chipping Norton ten years ago when the High Wycombe factory was sold.

He said: "Now this factory in Chipping Norton is also being sold. It seems to be the story of my life. Wherever I go, a factory closes down."

Site director Richard Curtis reckons that 90 per cent of the 300 workers who have left over the past year now have new jobs.

The only woman among the 13 award winners -- Pauline Forde, a qualified sewing machinist -- is among five employees to take a job at Barchester Healthcare, which is also based in Chipping Norton.

She said: "It's interesting to have a change of direction, and I am delighted to find another job locally."

Works manager Steve Cooper, who has worked with Parker Knoll since he left school at 16, said: "It's only on occasions like this that the reality of what is happening really sinks in."

Mark Tailby, a council officer, said: "In light of the closure of the Parker Knoll factory, the county council has agreed that the disused part of the highways depot should, in the first instance, be offered for sale to existing or new small businesses in Chipping Norton."

The site already has planning permission for an ambulance station, since shelved, and could be ready to advertise to businesses within a few months.

John Grantham, one of the Chipping Norton councillors who asked the county council to release the land sooner than planned, said: "We may not be able to solve the Parker Knoll situation but we ought to be doing something extra to make it easier."

Council officers said this week they were ironing out the final legal issues over the future of the Parker Knoll site, with one third of the site being used for business, and the rest for houses.

*Bus company Stagecoach is to take a jobs roadshow to the Parker Knoll factory

The company needs more drivers because of a contract with Oxford Brookes University and new European regulations limiting drivers to 40 hours a week.