Staff and union representatives were informed of the proposal yesterday (7 April), when the London site went into a 90 day consultation process.

It is understood that the Optima Park site's work will be transferred to other operations within the group and the company would also try to offset some compulsory redundancies internally.

However, a spokesman for St Ives said the company does not comment on industrial relations matters.

The proposal follows 170 job cuts at the group's web, direct mail and display arms in January and comes a little over a year after the site benefited from a multimillion pound investment in the UK's first Manroland 700 DirectDrive, a 12-colour B1 press.

"This comes as a complete and utter shock, especially as the site has only just had an investment," said Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke.

He added that the Crayford Chapel will meet later today to discuss the company's proposal and that as a matter of urgency he would discuss "what approach we [the union] should take".

The proposed closure was also met with surprise by a number of buyers, one of whom described the site, which was named PrintWeek's Packaging Printer of the Year in 2008, as "one of St Ives's hidden gems".

However, the multimedia packaging sector is coming under increasing pressure from the rise of internet downloads. The proposed closure comes a week after St Ives revealed that its first half profits had fallen by almost two-thirds and seven months after it sold its loss-making Dutch music and multimedia division, citing subdued demand in the CD insert market.

For more, see next week's PrintWeek.

Also see: Jo Francis blog