Quarry giant Lafarge may move HQ outside county
Quarry giant Lafarge has begun consulting with staff about a plan to relocate its head office from Leicestershire to the West Midlands.
The French-owned firm is set to complete a £2 billion merger with Tarmac and has announced that the combined business could be based in Solihull, about 30 miles from its Syston headquarters.
Lafarge employs about 400 people at the Syston headquarters.
It would not say how many employees at the office could be affected by the move.
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However, a source close to the discussions said: "There is no proposal to close the Syston office."
A Lafarge statement said: "The strategic rationale for the joint venture is clear and it offers an exciting opportunity to develop a leading UK construction materials company.
"We are now in the process of consulting employees on how the business will be structured once the regulatory process is complete.
"It is too early to comment on any potential outcomes of this consultation process."
Earlier this week, Tarmac said it was looking at closing its headquarters in Wolverhampton, where 500 people are employed, and relocating to Solihull.
Speaking in May, after the merger was given the go-ahead, Lafarge said it could not rule out the closure of its head office in Watermead Business Park, Syston.
The Competition Commission approved the tie-up of the two business on condition they sold parts of their businesses, to stop them controlling a huge swathe of the construction materials market.
The operations Lafarge has been told to sell does not include its Mountsorrel site, Europe's largest granite quarry.
It does include a cement plant in Hope, Derbyshire, as well as the nearby Dowlow quarry and three linked rail depots.
Lafarge's aggregates and concrete operations employ 1,650 staff in the UK.
It moved to its Syston HQ from Groby in 2004, when the office was opened by Conservative MP for Charnwood, Stephen Dorrell.
The group has almost 200 UK locations, including 38 quarries and 100 ready-mixed concrete plants.
Tarmac is owned by Anglo-American group, of South Africa. Both groups said combining the two businesses was expected to make them more efficient.
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