Initial negotiations after Astron's merger with Tactica have led to nine staff at Tactica's Norwich headquarters taking redundancy.


Group operations director Kathy Woodward said the firm had declared 34 Norwich-based jobs "at risk", and negotiations had begun immediately with three unions.


"There are some opportunities for people to transfer, but to be honest that's not too attractive for staff in Norwich, and I expect a number of redundancies not dissimilar [to 34]," said Woodward, who added that negotiations had gone "as well as they could ever go".


"It's part of the migration of the head office to Huntingdon," added chief executive David Mitchell.


The redundancies are in head office functions like marketing and finance, but group purchasing and customer service for some of its largest contracts will stay in Norwich.