Lichfield engineering firm in business park move

An engineering firm that employs hundreds of people is to relocate from its Eastern Avenue premises in Lichfield to an industrial park at Fradley. Norgren has been looking for new premises for its UK headquarters for months.

Staff at the current site were told yesterday that a 104,000 sq ft unit at Fradley Business Park has now been found.

Will Shaw, spokesman for parent company IMI, said the full details had yet to be confirmed on the lease agreement for the new site, but the move was on the way.

He said it was expected that the process of transferring operations to the business park would take about 18 months – six months to prepare the site and 12 months to complete the move. "We expect to be in at Fradley at the end of 2013," he added.

But Mr Shaw said that Norgren still planned to lose 180 posts. Staff were told a week before Christmas that the axe would fall over 2012 and 2013.

Mr Shaw said it was intended to find some of the job losses by a policy of non-replacement as people left. Around 125 of the posts that are going will be from the shop floor and 55 from supporting positions. Many of the axed positions will be transferred or outsourced.

He added that the cost of the relocation had not yet been calculated. The move is part of a restructure to create a new "engineering advantage centre" that will be responsible for research, design and development for the firm, which employs about 1,400 people in total across the UK.

Norgren is a specialist in pneumatic engineering.

The orginal Norgren business was started in Denver, Colarado, in the early 20th century when pioneer Carl Norgren founded his airline business in his kitchen.

By John Corser