TIMBER firm Gunns Limited is seeking up to 35 redundancies at its woodchip mills and plantation division.
The redundancies come as Gunns chairman John Gay and Treasurer Michael Aird talk up the firm to potential joint venture company Sodra in Europe.
Chief executive officer Greg L’Strange said the company would seek voluntary redundancies by October 2 and then assess whether it needed to retrench staff because of the market downturn.
“We will then review our current activity and demand levels and we will then have to make a next-step decision,” he said.
The redundancies would occur in the three mills at Hampshire, Triabunna and in the Tamar Valley, and in the plantation division.
Mr L’Strange said trimming of Gunns’ plantation division was necessary because there had not been growth in new plantings.
He said the plantations were going through a “cyclical phase” rather than a growth phase.
The revelation about plantations comes at an awkward time because Sodra has said it would only become involved in a mill that had 100 per cent plantation feedstock.
But Mr L’Strange said the redundancies would not affect Gunns’ ability to develop a pulp mill.
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Nick Clark, Mercury
