FOUR former managers of a North-East bakery have bought the business out of administration and saved 85 jobs.

Administrators at Tindale and Stanton in Burnopfield, County Durham, have sold the bakery as a going concern to a consortium of four former employees.

The new company, Star Cottage Bakery, bought the company on Friday following two weeks in administration.

Joint administrators John Russell and Andy Wood from The P&A Partnership had continued to trade Tindale and Stanton in a bid to find a buyer.

Mr Wood said: "We are pleased to have been able to sell the business as a going concern, particularly as the buyers are former employees.

"The quick sale of Tindale and Stanton is an endorsement of the rescue process that an administration enables.

"We must thank employees who have supported the administrators throughout the process. Also, the bakery’s key secured creditors, who gave us their backing to keep the business trading."

In a separate deal, two bakery shops in Harrogate which were owned by Bakery Products, Scarborough, have been sold to a new company Howards Bakery, saving 16 jobs. The Scarborough bakery closed on June 15.

But elsewhere in the region jobs have been lost after the collapse of Durham-based Peters Cathedral Bakers.

The firm, which trades as Peters Bakery and owns 58 shops across the region, ran into trouble earlier this month.

Administrators have closed three loss-making branches as they try to find a buyer for the business.

The shops in Billingham and Stockton and the Loaf-branded store in Pity Me stopped trading on Friday.

The closures mean 17 redundancies: 11 from Pity Me, two from Billingham and four from Stockton.

The threat to more than 400 jobs at the firm, which has been trading for over 40 years, was announced earlier this month.