"It's a bolt out of the blue in terms of the site, but in all honesty the way things are this announcement could have come from any of the major groups," said Unite national officer Vernon Robson.

Staff and customers were informed of the proposal on Thursday (22 May) and the 90 day consultation will officially start on 3 June. Should the proposal go ahead, it is understood that the firm will attempt to transfer Andover's work to other sites within the Web division.

"At this stage it's a proposal and we don't comment on HR issues," said St Ives chief executive Patrick Martell, who officially took charge last month.

Robson added: "We're not saying it's doomed or we are accepting the closure. We will be looking at anything and everything [with the company] we can do to keep it going, it has an efficient and effective workforce and there may be avenues we can look [down] to save it."

The leased Hampshire site, which in 2007 was PrintWeek's 2007 Business Magazine Printer of the Year, is equipped with a bindery and two 32pp eight unit Heidelberg M600 presses.

This latest proposal by the £439m turnover group follows 100 job cuts in January at the its Andover, Peterborough, Plymouth and Roche Web division sites, which were blamed on unsustainable pricing in the magazine sector, and last month's proposal to close it's Crayford multimedia packaging site.

"The worrying thing is that I don't think that this [Andover] is the last of the disasters of closures [in the industry], we know it won't be," said Robson.

For industry reaction, see next week's PrintWeek.