Compulsory purchase of printing company Newsfax re: Olympics
16 May 2006
Newsfax which prints the Guardian, The
Sun, The Observer, News of the World, FT, Morning Star
amongst many others, has its main site at the Lower Lea
Valley in East London. It is to be compulsorily moved to a new site
under the London Olympics plan.
Amid fears that that the Olympic Strategy partners and the
London Development Agency might favour extinguishing the company
(with the loss of 350 highly-skilled jobs) instead of an expensive
move, and with a looming deadline for ordering printing presses in
time for such a move, Newsfax turned to Amicus and its
Parliamentary Group to conduct some serious lobbying of the Olympic
decision makers.
The Parliamentary Group wrote to the LDA and London Assembly
members requesting meetings. It also enlisted support from the
Parliamentary All Party Print Group.
The support of the Amicus Parliamentary Group en masse seemed
to tip the balance and a decision was taken by the London
Development Agency to provide Newsfax firstly with a site that they
were happy with and secondly provide the commitment the company
needed for compensation before it could order new printing
presses.
Newsfax is now staying very open and moving to site it is
happy with in April 2007 with all 350 jobs saved.
