THE visit of a high-powered delegation to Centrax, Newton Abbot's turbine manufacturing giant, has fuelled intense speculation that the troubled firm is to be sold.

The delegation from Winnipeg-based Standard Aero – part of the Dunlop group – is thought to have included Bruce Clarke, senior vice president of corporate human resources, a sure sign, according to a senior source at the company, that Centrax was to be sold.

But the company stamped firmly on any suggestion of a sale with a spokesman insisting no response would be made to what they insisted was 'rumour and speculation'.

The spokesman added: 'We are visited by lots of people all the time. Inevitably a lot of people come to the site.'

However, since the September 11 terrorist atrocities, and the subsequent decline in air travel, orders have dropped significantly and the company has introduced a controversial two stage redundancy programme, which saw staff levels reduced by 20 per cent

There are now 669 employees at the 45 acre Shaldon Road site.

At the end of last year a former employee said that morale among staff was at rock bottom.

Marc Capron of St Leonards Road, Newton Abbot, was made redundant from his £30,000 a year job in the gas turbine division and brought a claim for unfair dismissal against Centrax – but it was thrown out by an Exeter industrial tribunal.

At the time he said Centrax had been an exceedingly good company until 1997.

Then, like a lot of firms, a new management style was introduced, with a whole raft of managers being promoted who didn't have the necessary skills.

Staff became 'over controlled and under-led,' and Centrax was 'spiralling downwards and still digging,' he claimed.

Although personnel director Peter Hockton – who is on holiday this week – dismissed Mr Capron's remarks as 'the comments of a bitter man', the former employee's stand was supported by Lionel Harper, who was made redundant from the finance department at Centrax after 37 years.

'Marc is right,' he said. 'Morale is low. I'm glad I am out of it. I wouldn't want to work there now. They are taking on the wrong sort of contracts.'

Centrax is a privately owned company that was founded in 1946 by Richard Barr OBE and the late Geoffrey White after having both worked with Sir Frank Whittle in the power jets design team, where they pioneered the use of the gas turbine for use in aircraft propulsion.

In 2002, the turbine components division was granted the Queen's Award for Enterprise – international trade – for its excellent overseas sales performance.