Dundee MP bids to save print jobs at Beano publishers

The MP for Dundee East, Stewart Hosie, is to meet the head of DC Thomson in an attempt to save 350 jobs.

The Dundee-based company, which publishes the Sunday Post, the Beano and the Dandy, is to shed the staff from its production and printing division.

It has said the cuts were necessary to protect the firm's future.

Mr Hosie will meet chief executive Andrew Thomson on Friday afternoon to discuss the proposed cuts.

The proposed closure is at a printing and book-binding centre in the city's Guthrie Street.

A 90-day consultation with staff who may lose their jobs has begun.

A spokesman for DC Thomson has already said it would do all it could to minimize the number of redundancies. He added that the changes would not affect its newspaper production.

It would continue to print The Courier and the Evening Telegraph newspapers, as well as The Sunday Post, at its Kingsway site.

DC Thomson & Co Ltd is a family-run company which employs more than 2,000 people.

Speaking when the jobs cuts were announced on Wednesday, the Lord Provost of Dundee, John Letford, described the job losses as "an extremely worrying situation for the employees and their families."

The firm produces more than 100 million copies of its newspapers, books, annuals, magazines and comics each year.