THE Town Mayor has voiced her sorrow for staff at a Droitwich factory whose jobs will be axed in October.

Office equipment manufacturers Acco, last Wednesday announced moves to shut its factory on Berry Hill industrial estate.

The firm, which has been running in Droitwich for 25 years, will axe 130 jobs altogether to strengthen its Peterborough manufacturing base. It also plans to outsource a number of products from the Far East.

Many workers are employed on the shop floor where they make a range of Rexel business machines including shredders, binding machines and laminators.

Amid talks of redundancy payments there were hopes that up to 45 people will be relocated to Peterborough, between 15 and 20 to a Halesowen service centre and around 10 engineers to Aylesbury, Bucks.

Town mayor, Jan Bolton, owner of Executive Cleaners in High Street particularly sympathised with the local employees.

She said: "I am very sorry to hear about the closure of Acco. It is a big disappointment and will disrupt the lives of many families in Droitwich. I would have liked to have seen it stay in the town."

FINAL WHISTLE: The Acco factory on Berry Hill industrial Estate

Acco's European human resources director, Simon Wells was keen to bring the affected workforce and those they could not relocate, "enhanced" redundancy terms and an on-site job shop to help workers secure jobs elsewhere.

Mr Wells said: "The loss of employment in Droitwich is of course regretted but we are offering outplacement support to all employees, to assist them to secure employment locally.

"The company has not taken this decision lightly and is grateful for the dedication and support from long serving and loyal employees."

Simon Wells added that the move was inevitable with the decline in sales of major products, growth in foreign exports and the strength of the pound.

He said: "No one would be going for another 90 days and they were offering redundancy payments over and above the statutory redundancy requirement."

However their main objective was to look after those people in the best possible way that had been affected by the closure of the factory.

He added they were now offering the staff pre-retirement courses, financial advice and a job shop with an 85 to 90 per cent success rate.