The closure of a dairy in Kidlington brings to an end almost half a century's links between the village and the humble pinta.

The end of work at the plant in Langford Lane in September 2002 will come on the golden jubilee of the formation of County Dairies by a group of Oxfordshire dairymen.

The blow comes as the dairy's owners, Dairy Crest, announce plans to develop a 39m "super dairy" at Severnside, Gloucestershire, which will create more than 320 new jobs but cost almost twice as many.

The dairy site in Kidlington will be sold by Dairy Crest, whose brands include Clover, Cathedral City and Yoplait, but the adjacent juice business, which employs 150 people in Kidlington, will continue unaffected.

Dairy Crest chief executive John Houliston said: "Quite clearly it is always regrettable when you have to reduce the number of jobs in the company. When we have to make people redundant, we work very hard to offer them all alternatives and offer a job shop and counselling service."

Workers losing their jobs will be given priority if jobs become available at the Kidlington juice operation.

Peter Barrett, Dairy Crest manager at Kidlington, said the dairy would remain up and running until July 2002, when production would start to be transferred.

He said: "We recognise the impact thiswill have on staff and their families. The job shop will help staff on an individual basis. Job shops have been successful in the past and we will ensure all staff have access to this facility."

The connection between Kidlington and milk stretches back to 1952 when County Dairies first started.

Led by the Burton family and the enterprise of the late Frank Burton, the site quickly grew to become a major milk distributor. When it opened, its output was 6,000 gallons a day and continual growth meant a big expansion of staff and dairy-handling equipment.

In 1975 ownership of the group was transferred to the Smith and Candy families, taking milk from 170 farms and distributing 30,000 gallons a day about a quarter of a million pint bottles over an area from Leicester to Newbury, London to Cheltenham.

The retail distribution businesses was built up from the original Wigmore, Smith and Candy families and by the mid-1970s delivered to more than 40,000 households.

In June 1976, a gleaming multi-million pound production line was installed at the site and five years later the firm expanded into the fruit juice market. It started with just 18 employees. Within five years it employed 90 people and had become Britain's largest processor of fruit juice.

In June last year, Unigate St Ivel sold the dairy to Dairy Crest ,which also plans to close dairy sites at Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, which will shut in November, and at Marshfield, Cardiff, which will close in February next year.