Chief executive Clive Parkes has written to the council on legal advice after councillor Mike Layland's comments were quoted in a local newspaper.

Baylis wants to move from its five-acre London Road site, which is surrounded by a housing estate, to a site close to the M5 where it could run a 24-hour operation.

Selling the site for housing development would net the company as much as 6.5m, compared to around 1.5m if it was sold for industrial use.

"It makes sense to us that if we could get residential planning on a site that's surrounded by houses anyway, then we would be able to build a new factory," said Parkes

"But quite honestly, we don't feel that even if we got residential prices for the land it would cover the cost of building the new factory."

"It is not my intention to sell the factory for a supermarket and move us to Wales, or even sell it and run away with the money.

"We are looking to stay in Worcester where we have a good workforce, but be slightly closer to the motorway."

Parkes believes that a move from the current factory, which has low ceilings and was built in 1935, would create as many as 50 new jobs in the 150-staff company.

But the city council's planning committee has unanimously rejected the sheetfed printer's application for a change of use to the site.

Layland insisted that his comments, reported in the Worcester Evening News, were meant generally and were not directed at Goodman Baylis in particular.

"I have run a successful business and I would probably want to do the same. It's human nature," he said.

But Layland said that the planning committee's decision had been made "purely on planning grounds, and not on business grounds".

He added that there were no suitable sites within Worcester where Goodman Baylis could relocate.

Story by Josh Brooks