East Malling Redundancies Announced
November 5, 2007 by fruitforum
It is no secret now that East Malling Research is one of the bidders for management of the National Fruit Collections from 2008, in partnership with Brogdale Horticultural Trust and Imperial College at Wye, and if they win they intend to move the Collections to East Malling. The current issue of Horticulture Week reports that East Malling plans to make eleven redundancies among it staff from 2008. (http://www.hortweek.com/news_story.cfm?ID=2916) Unofficial sources claim these redundancies focus on the breeding work on tree fruits. This cannot be good news for East Malling’s bid to manage the Collections, which are primarily a collection of tree fruits.
Joan Morgan
I would just like to point out that actually East Malling Research has not ‘announced’ any redundancies and you are simply reacting to speculation in the media. Furthermore, East Malling Research has a workforce of 100 people so a redundancy programme on the scale that you have speculated would hardly impede our ability to conduct horticultural R&D. It is a matter of record that the Horticultural Development Council Tree Fruit Panel decided two years ago, as a business decision, to end their support for apple and pear variety breeding - so this is hardly new news either.