Carl Zeiss shuts Welwyn site

Carl Zeiss Vision is to closeits Welwyn Garden City facility and relocate its head office and lens operations to new premises in Birmingham, leading to several job losses.

The company confirmed earlier this week that the transfer would become effective on March 31.

It added that the move was necessary to provide it with 'increased market presence' and a 'significantly greater commercial and manufacturing footprint which allowed it to implement future growth'.

Confirming the job losses, in a statement to Optician, Carl Zeiss Vision managing director John Rosser said: 'Where possible, we are attempting to relocate key workers to our new improved facility to strengthen our business, but unfortunately, there we will be several redundancies where role duplication occurs.'