UP to 45 workers face losing their jobs with Golden Eggs preparing to fly the coop from Palmyra.

The factory has been a landmark along Leach Highway for 45 years but is set to be replaced by 254 apartments in a $109 million complex.

Finbar has secured the sprawling 2.7 hectare site and intends to redevelop the site in a joint venture with Golden Eggs’ parent company West Coast Eggs.

General manager Bernard Egan says there will be a mix of layoffs and job relocations as operations are shifted to Gingin and administration to High Wycombe.

“At this stage it’s too early to say how many people will be made redundant and we’re in talks about that right now,” he says.

“We used to have a lot more workers at the site, but for the past 20 years we’ve been slowly migrating our facilities to the country, which makes sense given our line of work.

“Another factor is the age of the building: we’ve been here since 1971 and refurbishing and bringing the facility up to modern standards has proved very difficult.”

Fremantle Labor MP Simone McGurk says wider Fremantle is at a delicate crossroads.

“We’re seeing more traditional employers displaced by residential development,” she says. “Some of that is progress, but we need to make sure the mix is right.

Difficult to relocate

“We want people to be working as well as living in metropolitan centres like Fremantle. For those workers at Golden Egg Farms, many of them would be production workers who I imagine will find it difficult to relocate or find other work. It’s important they’re looked after.”

Mr Egan says a proposed widening of Leach Highway to accommodate the controversial Perth Freight Link will not affect the apartments project.

“In the plan I saw it was only a small slip road that touched the fringe of the Golden Eggs site and we were pretty much unscathed,” he says.

“The route pretty much extended right over D’Orsogna.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK