Wheelie bins once made in Bradford will now be produced in Hull following the sale of the business.

Helesi, the Greek-based waste management products and services supplier, has sold its UK business to Leeds-based Straight plc for £1.6m. The money will be used to reduce Helesi’s short-term debt.

The former Bradford plant in Bowling Back Lane, which opened in 2004, had been working flat out producing two-wheeled waste bins for customers across the UK and Europe.

At its peak the factory made 500,000 bins a year and employed about 20 people. The site was mothballed in September and production transferred to Greece in what Helesi bosses said would be a temporary move. Production was later transferred to Goldthorpe, near Rotherham.

The new owners have no plans to re-open Bradford or Goldthorpe, which also closed.

Jonathan Straight, chief executive of Straight, said: “We have been a distributor of Helesi products in the UK for a number of years and our customers have always been very satisfied with their high quality.”

Straight will also become the exclusive UK and Irish distributor and licensee for other Helesi products and will have the right of first refusal to import and distribute any new products developed by Helesi.

Helesi said the deal with Straight was part of a continuing cost reduction strategy.

Sakis Andrianopoulos, chief executive, said: “The new arrangements will rationalise our UK activities, whilst enabling us to concentrate our manufacturing operations into new modern facilities elsewhere in Europe.

“This transaction represents a natural development of our European growth strategy and we look forward to working with Straight to develop our activities in the UK.”