Some 125 Harris Tweed weavers have been officially told they will not get any more work from the controversial Brian Haggas mill until around the end of the year.
The mill has issued a warning that "it would be foolish to carry on" producing when it has a massive stockpile to sell in its unknown market. This year has been disastrous for the bulk of island weavers with very little work coming from what was once the major producer of the local textile industry.
The looming crisis was revealed by Hebrides News in May after the mill confirmed it was stockpiling a huge pile of tweed in China. The lack of work in the near future emerged last month but now has been confirmed in a letter sent to weavers.
Yorkshire magnate Brian Haggas took over much of the KM Group which compromised the customer list and patterns at the Kenneth Macleod mill at Shawbost as well as all the assets including the buildings at the Kenneth Mackenzie plant in Stornoway.
Mr Haggas has embarked on a contentious strategy to dedicate production on one single style of men's jackets. He shipped enough cloth to a Far East factory to be tailored into 75,000 garments which are being sold to retailers.
Last year he rejected the Shawbost customers though he continued to complete cloth for orders inherited from the Stornoway mill. However this ground to almost a halt in Spring with only a trickle of tweeds being issued to weavers.
Around half the mill workforce have been made redundant in May while the 125 self-employed weavers are out of full-time work.
The remaining 40 or so mill workers are engaged on maintenance tasks while some weavers have received tweeds from the new-start Shawbost mill which due to its size has limited capacity.
Now it has been confirmed that the dire dearth of tweeds and the resultant lack of work will continue until further notice.
Weavers received a letter outlining the position from Mr Haggas on Tuesday.
Speaking personally Ness weaver Calum Maclean said: "I am really, really, worried. I am very concerned for the future of Mackenzie's mill. I have hopes for Shawbost and am very encouraged by its performance in the last few months since its start.
He added: "I have had only two weeks work from Mackenzie's since February compare to weaving flat out every day from February this time last year- that's a massive difference."
"Mackenzie's mill was once the biggest but has now been reduced to a small producer.
