LYNN NEWS COMMENT: Think again on CITB closure

This has not been an easy few months for the job market in West Norfolk, or indeed Norfolk as a whole.

Further afield, Britvic look likely to depart from their base in Norwich, putting a question mark over the use of the site by Unilver, who share it.

Closer to home, BAE Systems are reviewing operations nationwide and the best part of 250 jobs are under threat at its base at RAF Marham.

And this week, furniture company Multiyork, who are based in Thetford, went into administration putting 550 jobs at risk around the county.

But topping all this is the news that 600 jobs could be removed from the West Norfolk employment market by the moving of the CITB headquarters from Bircham Newton to Peterborough.

No-one owes West Norfolk a living. it has to compete in an increasingly competitive real world.

But since the National Training College for the building industry opened at the former RAF airfield in the early 1960s, this has been a partnership that has worked exceptionally well to the benefit of both parties.

Bircham Newton has afforded generations of construction workers the space to hone their skills and forge a careeer.

It is still a good place for the CITB to be based and the Lynn News calls for the management of the organisation to think again on moving away.

Here they are a prized asset. In Peterborough they will just be another medium-sized enterprise.

Mark Leslie, Editor