back to article Give my regards to Reigate: Print biz Canon to up sticks in the sticks

Canon is to shutter its Reigate office in deepest Surrey in favour of the unbridled glamour of Uxbridge. In an announcement chock full of phrases like "customer centricity", Canon pointed the finger of blame at its plans to move to a "Business Process Outsource" (BPO) model for finance, business operations and customer …

  1. Mark Manderson
    Trollface

    Ahh what is it with Crispin Blunt????

    You never hear of him like ever and in 2 weeks his name has popped up twice now!

    Sitting after work minding own business one evening, flicked mancave Tv on and it was on BBC Parliament (no idea either!)

    so some debate going on about Medicinal Cannabis and i spotted the MP talking, a Mr Crispin Blunt!

    I mean who would expect an MP to have the name of the way stoners prefer their fare, crisp n blunt!

    Once id wiped TV free of Coffee and spittal from laughing my arse off, i had to get a pic :)

    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Ahh what is it with Crispin Blunt????

      Most of the candidates for new Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister seem to have taken drugs at college and then tried to keep it quiet. Google for "Crispin Blunt" turned up a Daily Telegraph article (paywalled, and I haven't paid) on that topic - because he wrote it. "But at least they will be properly representative of the country they hope to lead," he said, in the free-view section (presumably it gets much more naughty later).

      I can't readily think of drugs names (because I don't know many) for the rest of them apart from Jeremy Skunk and Andrea Hadsome (both... substantially... as alleged), but you get the idea.

      Esther Wahey?

      Matt Hand-Cut?

      1. TimMaher Silver badge

        Re: Ahh what is it with Crispin Blunt????

        Check out the cover of the latest Private Eye.

        Classic.

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Let's place a bet on what the next step could be

    Move the EMEA office to a rEU country...?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Let's place a bet on what the next step could be

      And not worry that the MEA bit means Middle East and Africa?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Let's place a bet on what the next step could be

        So why not move closer to Africa And Middle East?

  3. Velv
    Mushroom

    Star Wars A New Hope, Gold Five: "STAY ON TARGET"

    Tories: "STAY ON TARGET"

    Despite the increasing evidence of how bad Brexit is going to be for the people of the UK, the Tory party (who never wanted Brexit in the first place but caved in to a couple of loons with money) insist it must be delivered. Stop. Ask the people again, and properly this time with an understanding of what Brexit actually is.

    Or carry on like Gold Five...

    1. fruitoftheloon
      Happy

      @Velv

      Velv,

      so what is it then?

      [Hint] facts not opinions...

      Over to you.

      Cheers,

      Jay

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Ask the people again, and properly this time with an understanding of what Brexit actually is.

      You expect to get a different answer to the one they gave in the EU elections last month?

      1. Empire of the Pussycat

        ah, the one where remain votes outnumbered leave

        obligatory body

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "Where the remain vote beat the leave vote?" (link removed)

          Where the margin between leave and remain is within a few percentage points i.e. Brexit/Tories/UKIP on 44% vs the rest on 56% although Labours position on Brexit was unclear based on their own public statements/policies and a significant swing away from Labour to parties supporting Remain may put that much closer.

          Would you confidently predict a Remain victory in a second referendum based on polling going into the first referendum being around the 46% Leave/54% Remain mark (i.e. similar to the EU elections) and the <40% turnout in the EU elections despite the majority of the electorate wishing Brexit would just go away

          In my view, the country as a whole is still in the "too close to call" state. And yes, I find that surprising given the events of the last 3 years.

        2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Lies, damned lies, and...

          Where the remain vote beat the leave vote?

          Hmm. Take the 35% of people who voted for "hard Brexit" parties, compare it with the 40% who voted for any sort of Remain party, and by ignoring the other 25% it concludes that remain votes exceeded leave ones? Interesting approach, but I feel it lacks a certain mathematical rigour.

          Ever since the election journalists from all the papers have been trying to map the figures to align with their preferred leave/remain outcome, and they've all succeeded! If nothing else that just shows that the figures are still much as they were three years ago, with no major shift either way.

          It also perhaps shows that the Leave voters have a more concrete idea of what they want, since the single-issue hard Leave party (Brexit) got 31% of the votes and 40% of the seats, while the single-issue Remain party (ChangeUK) got 3.3% of the votes, and no seats.

  4. Korev Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Commute

    Google thinks a commute from Regiate to Uxbridge tomorrow morning will take from 50 mins to almost two hours, with public transport taking sightly longer. That kind of commute is no life so I guess they'll either have to move or take redundancy... Poor staff.

  5. ma1010
    Trollface

    Interesting

    We've got Jeremy Hunt and Crispin Blunt. I know nothing about UK politicians, but this makes me wonder, are they all berks?

    1. Pat Att

      Re: Interesting

      "Berks" is putting it very mildly.

      1. Anonymous Custard
        Headmaster

        Re: Interesting

        Not really, if you actually know the origin of the term (abbreviated Cockney rhyming slang, from "Berkeley Hunt")...

      2. smudge

        Re: Interesting

        "Berks" is putting it very mildly.

        Whoosh!

        1. Pat Att

          Re: Interesting

          Ha, fair enough, yes. I have now learnt the origin of berks!

    2. BebopWeBop
      Unhappy

      Re: Interesting

      Well if you are a left ponder, we have a Johnson as well

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Interesting

      1/ Uxbridge is known as little Tokyo, so it's great if you want lots of local Japanese schools, other Japanese speaking school mums etc.

      2/ It's much closer to Heathrow, so it's great for trips back to Japan.

      Most of the people making the choice will be Japanese, with a secondment over here for 2-5 years.

      Only thing that surprised me was that they stayed there so long.

      Only silver in the cloud is many of them will have been working from home most of the time and the change will not really impact them.

      Trouble is, if you can work from home and do your job, so can someone else in EMEIA....

      1. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: Interesting

        "Uxbridge is known as little Tokyo"

        Is it? I've lived in Uxbridge for the past 12 years and have never heard it described as such. And compared to somewhere like Acton, there's a notable dearth of Japanese-oriented businesses/services (e.g. the "lots of local Japanese schools" you mention) to be found. Unless they're simply really well hidden out of view of the local residents...

        1. Anonymous Custard
          Headmaster

          Re: Interesting

          I always thought that was Croydon.

          At least that's where all my Japanese ex-pat colleagues used to live (my employer is a Japanese company).

          Still the Cannon place is a nice spot, on the lower end of Reigate Hill, so I'm sure they can sell it off for a tidy packet to some developer for yet more tiny identikit boxes they laughingly call apartments and homes around here.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uxbridge

    That site is right next to the canal, so leafy hills don't come into it.

    I remember once going through a load of security there to get to the demonstration/test lab, including a substantial turnstile, and being told it was necessary to prevent theft. They were not amused when I suggested that a boater with an angle grinder could remove some palings from the fence, break in, steal a few printers and disappear while the constabulary were looking for signs of break-in at the main entrance. OK, disappearing at 4mph would be hardly a high speed getaway.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They knew what they were voting for

    That is up to 450 brexiteers satisfied with the removal of their inconvenient jobs. They all seem to agree this is a price worth paying, less sure if they agree what they are paying for (other than some cut-price slogans).

    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: 450 brexiteers

      They were late to the party (30 mins to be precise).

  8. SVV

    Blame it on Brexit irony

    New location Uxbridge represented by.............. Boris Johnson MP

    If loa!ds more firms decide to move there, we may have to start getting very suspicious.

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. Zebo-the-Fat

    Canon is to shutter its Reigate office

    "Canon is to shutter its Reigate office" , is this different from "shut the office"??

    I always thought a shutter was part of a camera, but then it is Canon :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Canon is to shutter its Reigate office

      Zebo-the-Fat,

      Shutter is also those metal 'shutters' that shops sometimes have to protect the windows when closing for the day.

      Often seen on premises that have closed 'permanently' ..... like on most high streets, it would seem.

      I suspect it was a reference to Canon/Cameras etc aka <joke> :)

  11. DJO Silver badge

    Ulterior Motive?

    I know that site, several acres right on the A217, slap in the middle of a prime residential area - I wonder what'll happen to it?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Ulterior Motive?

      I remember Clarkson saying that if Kent is the garden of England Surrey is the patio.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Combined with the recent loss of the Legal & General site at Kingswood that is over 3000 jobs lost in the area. There's going to be a lot of new housing in the area, how much of it will be affordable?

    1. DJO Silver badge

      how much of it will be affordable?

      A number somewhere between 0% and 0.00000000000001% (approximately).

      Realistically there is no "affordable" accommodation anywhere in the UK except slum type shacks in the middle of some northern wasteland.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        With a country hooked on cheap credit all that money had to go somewhere and that somewhere was property. If you got property prices returned to affordable now the mess left by negative credit on the banking industry would be even bigger than it was when dealer Brown left. And as the only remedy seems to be more and cheaper credit it's only going to get worse.

  13. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    Company shuts office SHOCKER!

    Of course it is partially being caused by Brexit, and partially by the global economic downturn, and partially by Trump and his trade war(s). None of this can be separated out to point to one single cause. However, the number of businesses MOVING their offices or part of their offices to elsewhere in the EU is directly attributable to Brexit and very little else. How many banks have now moved substantial parts of their London offices to other EU locations? Dunno, but I do know that Luxembourg is running out of office space to house many of them.

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