St Ives has sent a clear signal to publishers that it will not pursue work at any price with the announcement of the closure of its Gillingham plant.

Gillingham mainly produces publication work. Its clients include Haymarket and EMAP.

St Ives announced the move today (1 February), and the groups Web division has begun the necessary consultation period. The closure will involve 210 redundancies and will cost St Ives around 5.7m.

Our team has been reviewing the situation for some time, explained group managing director Brian Edwards. There is too much capacity chasing too little volume, and weve seen magazine paginations fall off. Gillingham is a leasehold site, it doesnt have many years to run on the lease and its not an ideal size or shape for current technology.

This is a depressing decision to have to make. Regrettably, it is harsh reality, Edwards added.

St Ives hopes to retain all the Gillingham contracts. We have under-utilised capacity elsewhere within the division that will fulfil customers requirements, Edwards stated.

Gillinghams kit includes two sheetfed presses and four webs: a Baker Perkins G16, two Komori System 38s and a Komori mini-web. It also has perfect binding and stitching. Most of the kit will be sold.

The move follows the reduction in web capacity in St Ives Direct division at the beginning of the year. At the time the group said: We continue to keep the cost base of all our businesses under active review and further steps in our rationalisation programme may well become necessary.

The move adds to the widespread gloom afflicting the web sector (see separate story).