Huge Amazon complex to close in March with consultation branded 'highly unsatisfactory'

Consultation on 1,000 jobs at the Towers Business Park site ends tomorrow, with individual meetings held early next week.

And the Express & Star has learned the Rugeley site will close for good on March 3, 2024.

One employee, who didn't want to be named, said the consultation process had been 'highly unsatisfactory'.

She said: "A lot of the questions asked were not on issues we wanted addressed and the whole exercise seems to have been carried out as a necessity, with decisions already made on what is going to happen.

"One of the biggest questions was how we would be able to reach the new site, which is out in the countryside, not even really near Sutton and though we were given the option to re-locate, if you don't drive it is not viable, or even if you do, their is a cost implication.

"I understand buses will run to the new factory from Birmingham but not from the north of the region and certainly not from Rugeley, where a lot of people who work here presently are transported by the company from places such as Walsall.

"I have worked here 10 years and always lived in the Rugeley area so it is not really practical for me to move and that is the same with a lot of the colleagues I have spoken to.

"We have individual meetings on Monday but it would seem that any options we are given will be on the companies terms and what they have come up with is generally not acceptable to people here, many of whom have given long and dedicated service at the Rugeley site."

The new site at Hams Hall will employ 1,400 people when it begins handling customer orders in October, with recruitment for a range of roles underway.

It is understood workers at Rugeley are being given the option to work there until the site closes, re-locate or have their present contracts ended and paid up.

Rachel Fagan, union GMB organiser, said: "This is yet another example of the contempt Amazon have for its workforce.

"Earlier this year Amazon were briefing the press with stories of huge investments. Before long they were warning hundreds of local people they could be out of work come the summer holidays.

"Workers at Rugeley deserve better than this. They deserve decent pay and job by security.

"Amazon are acting recklessly yet again, putting workers here in the UK in a desperate situation.

"No wonder then that so many Amazon workers are joining GMB, the union for Amazon workers."

A spokesman for Amazon confirmed the site would close and that individual consultation were to commence shortly.