Mike Laycock reflects on the Evening Press campaign to save Terry's following today's confirmation that the chocolate factory will close.

IT was always going to be one of this paper's most difficult campaigns.

When Kraft Foods said on April 19 that Terry's factory was to shut, and the production of favourites such as All Gold and Chocolate Orange was to be transferred to Europe, it was not putting forward a proposal. It was announcing a decision.

The company made clear that the decision had not been taken lightly, but after lengthy analysis of other options, including a move to a new purpose-built factory elsewhere in the York area.

But the Evening Press felt that the loss of 316 jobs, and a York chocolate-making tradition going back more than 200 years, was too important to go without a protest, and without a concerted attempt being made to persuade the company to think again.

Almost 5,000 people agreed. Signatures for our petition were posted in from readers across York and North and East Yorkshire, while others signed the forms in local newsagents. There was support online from readers all over the world who had read of the news on our website, www.thisisyork.co.uk

Workers at York's other chocolate factory, Nestl Rowntree, backed the campaign.

After Terry's shop steward Vic Botterill and I had addressed delegates at the GMB union's national conference at Scarborough, leading trades unionists from all four corners of Britain went back to their own workplaces and gathered even more signatures.

The campaign's only realistic hope lay in the unions being able to come up with a viable counter-proposal to move to a new purpose-built factory.

They had the statutory right to be consulted on the closure proposals, and were also given access to commercially confidential information that could not be revealed to the general public or media.

Sadly, their conclusions today signal the end of the campaign, and the task now switches to ensuring that the workers receive good redundancy terms, and also that the right use is found for the factory site in its prime location alongside York Racecourse - one that will create jobs to compensate for those axed by Kraft.

Updated: 10:40 Tuesday, June 22, 2004