About 60 people have lost their jobs since the Darlington company called in administrators early last month after falling into financial difficulties.

The company stopped trading last Friday after the hunt for a buyer proved "unachievable", with only about six people still employed as the site is wound up.

But yesterday, former employees at the company, which has traded in the town for more than 40 years, revealed they were still owed money by MEC after discovering that a pension payment had not been made.

May 2007 M&S pension scheme members will have to choose one of the three following options:

• Start making pension contributions from their salary; contributions will rise to 7% over the next three years

• Do not make contributions but as a result accrue benefits at a slower rate

• Do not make contributions but agree to a limit on the rate at which their pensionable salaries rise.

Under section 35 of the government Pensions Bill, former Mayflower directors such as David Donnelly, finance director, and John Fleming, joint managing director, could be personally liable to plug the pension fund hole.

McVitie’s parent company United Biscuits was taken over in 2006 in a £1.6 billion deal with private equity firms the Blackstone Group and PAI Partners, who assured staff that it would be business as usual.

The takeover was quickly followed by calls that the new owners should fund the food group’s £213 million pension deficit.

Jan 2006 Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson has written to all former employers of MG Rover, Powertrain and suppliers warning them of a potential 47 per cent reduction in their pensions. Unions have already held three meetings with the PPF - and were optimistic the Longbridge pension schemes would be accepted. The PPF, introduced by the Government two days before MG Rover went bust on April 8 last year, aims to pay 100 per cent of the pension to which members who have already reached the schemes' retirement age are entitled. It also aims to pay 90 per cent of the benefits people would have received when they are 65 if they have not reached this age, up to maximum of £25,000 a year.

The Motherwell Bridge Group Pension Fund is still going through the wind-up process started in September 2003, but is now subjected to a Management Buy Out.  As a result of the MBO the Pension Fund Plan will receive an additional £5 Million, the additional £5 Million is the value put on the 24,900 ordinary shares that the Pension Fund Plan was given in the newly restructured Company in September 2003.