THE Forest was dealt another jobs blow this week with the announcement that industrial packaging company Sonoco is to close. It is understood 32 people will be thrown out of work.

The Tufthorn Avenue, Coleford, company has been operating locally for many years. Some employees have completed 40 years there.

The announcement was made on Monday.

The Review was told a date for the official closure had yet to be announced.

More talks took place this week designed to help some of the 100 workers recently made redundant by job cuts at Lydney's Federal Mogul plant and the closure of Lydney Building Concepts, formerly Lydney Containers.

Graham Grindle, TUC representative for Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and the West of England, said he feared more job losses could be in the pipeline.

He said that in Gloucestershire alone he had dealt with 1,135 redundancies in just six weeks. Many of them had been in the Forest.

"We try and help with advice from various sources. But it is very worrying – the situation in the Forest is that there are just 29 jobcentre vacancies," he said.