CITY of York Council has deferred a decision to approve a £525,000 loan to turn the premises of a manufacturing business into storage space.

The boss of printing business Barringtons appealed to councillors at a full council meeting to refuse York Museum Trust’s request for funding to turn Barringtons’ business premises into a new storage facility for its artefacts.

The trust had applied to the council to approve a loan of £525,000 to buy a new storage facility.

But Mark Snee, managing director of Technoprint, Barrington’s parent company, said the business had asked their landlord to allow them to buy the freehold of the site after a particularly good year, after they had to rebuild the business to compete with competition from the Far East.

However, once on the market, the business was outbid by York Museums Trust. Mr Snee said it would cost the business £10,000 to move its most expensive machine out of the premises, so it would relocate the assets back to its four-acre site in Leeds and close the York operation.

“Clearly we are never going to win a bidding war with the council, but our view is that the purchase price currently offered by YMT is in excess of current market prices anyway.

“In my view, this is an abuse of power by a public authority, to the clear detriment of a hard-working manufacturing business and its employees, doing their best to compete in harsh economic times. It totally flies in the face of the UK Government’s plans to deal with the serious economic problems facing the country.”

Opposition leaders moved for the issue to be scrutinised at next Monday’s Staffing Matters and Urgency Committee to give them the opportunity to hear the business’ side of the story.

Conservative party leader Coun Ian Gillies, pictured, said there had been no mention of the effects on the occupier before the council was asked to approve £525,000 for the trust to buy a new storage facility.

Coun James Alexander said: “I am very concerned and I’m relieved it has been deferred until we can have some clarification on what’s going on.”

The business, which is part of Technoprint of Leeds, took on four of the original nine employees from Sessions’ printing division when Sessions went into administration earlier this year.