Wyndeham Group announced on Wednesday (4 January) that 86 staff would be made redundant at the plant.

The move has come in a week that has seen the web-offset sector announce huge cuts in pay and capacity with Polestar planning to close its 400-staff Colchester plant and BGP asking all employees to take a pay cut of up to 20%.

Unite national officer Steve Sibbald told PrintWeek that the route Wyndeham and Polestar are taking, by cutting capacity, makes more sense than asking staff to take pay cuts.

However, he added that employees at Heron would be particularly sour about the move as they had agreed to changes in terms and conditions against union advice in 2008.

At the time Wyndeham Group also made 163 redundancies, but said that the pay cut and changes to working hours would help avoid having to make more.

Sibbald said: "The job cuts at Wyndeham Heron rubs salt into the wound because they took cuts on the basis of avoiding further redundancies.

"Here we are two years later and there are 86 further redundancies. This is not a symptom of overcapacity it is the conclusion of the web-offset sector chasing customers with lower and lower prices."

• Elsewhere, it has been confirmed that St Ives Westerham Press has now closed, while the consultation at its Blackburn site continues. Sibbald said he would be "very surprised" if there was a reprieve for the plant.