450 jobs to be axed as poultry site shuts down

HUNDREDS of jobs will be axed at a Scottish poultry plant after its owners announced it will close within months.

The 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG) said it will shut down its processing site at Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, in August.

The plant’s closure means 450 workers will lose their jobs.

Staff were given the news by managers at lunchtime yesterday before being handed a letter from 2SFG that read: ‘Despite everyone’s best efforts, we have not been able to find an alternative to the initial proposal to close the site.’

The threat of closure has hung over the 56-year-old plant since February, when the company said it was no longer viable due to heavy losses.

After an eight-week consultation period involving the company, unions, Scottish Enterprise

‘Devastating blow for staff’

and the Scottish Government, 2SFG said it had no choice but to close the site.

Company bosses said every alternative to closure had been explored but union chiefs said 2SFG should have extended the consultation period.

Unite convener Scot Walker said: ‘We met with the 2 Sisters management last week and asked for an extension to the consultation period so that the union could make further approaches to the Scottish Government who had offered further assistance, including the First Minister’s involvement, to get it over the line. The company turned that down flat.’

2SFG, which plans to create 250 new roles in Coupar Angus, Perthshire, said Cambuslang workers can apply to be redeployed to its other sites.

Rutherglen MP Ged Killen said the closure was ‘a devastating blow for the workforce, their families and the wider community in Cambuslang’.

A 2SFG spokesman said: ‘This is not a decision we take lightly. We have been trying extremely hard to reverse the position for a considerable period.’