The trade union representing workers at Andover's Twinings factory have described plans to move production to other countries as "disgraceful".

The tea makers, which has its Head Office on the Walworth Business Park, wants to relocate production lines to Poland and China, meaning the loss of 129 jobs in the town.

Many staff at the plant are members of the Usdaw union and the organisation will be working with Twinings during a consultation period.

Mike Parsonage is the area organiser and says they're disappointed by the proposals: "The productivity and the quality of the work over many years has been excellent in Andover.

"It just seems to me that here we have another situation of a company which is making good profits which is prepared to sacrifice a British workforce just to make a little extra money by moving to a cheaper employment area and I think it's disgraceful."

Marcus Cotter-Stone, International Supply Director at Twinings, said: "We understand that this announcement may cause concern for some of our employees. This is a very difficult but necessary step which will allow Twinings to remain competitive in our markets worldwide and take full advantage of future growth opportunities."

Test Valley Borough Council say they'll be working closely with the company to try and minimise the impact of the job losses.

Twinings moved onto the Walworth Business Park in 1966 and these changes will shrink the workforce by a quarter.

Councillor Peter Giddings is responsible of economic development for Test Valley and says they have mixed feelings about the announcement: "Our initial reaction is obviously one of great disappointment because Twinings are one of the first companies to operate out of Walworth and we want to keep them in Andover. To that extent we're pleased to learn they are going to centre their distribution in Andover.

"Clearly with unemployment having more than doubled in Andover in the last year or so we need to be on our toes to alleviate the situation."

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