Southampton Council leader to meet Deptuy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

7:11am Monday 29th October 2012 in News

Crisis talks to be held over Ford closure Crisis talks to be held over Ford closure

Crisis talks take place today over Ford’s plans to shut down Southampton’s Transit factory.

Union bosses will meet with convenors and shop stewards at the Swaythling plant this morning to discuss the shock closure announcement made last week.

And later today Southampton City Council boss Richard Williams will come face to face with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

During the talks Cllr Williams will push for more Government investment to boost jobs in the Southampton area.

He will ask the Government to transform the Ford Swaythling site into an enterprise zone to attract new businesses.

Following the closure of the transit factory in July next year more than 500 Ford staff will lose their jobs.

One top of that, as revealed in Saturday’s Daily Echo, hundreds more workers employed by firms with contracts to supply Ford at also at risk.

Those job losses come on top of hundreds of other redundancies announced in the area this year, including 500 jobs at British Gas, and others at Skandia and B and Q.

For all the latest news and reaction to the Ford closure click here

Related links

Comments(9)

hulla baloo says...
7:17am Mon 29 Oct 12

Why crisis talks about Fords? This has been on the cards for years and was inevitable.
Talks should be held about what to do with the site and attracting alternative future investors.

Report this post »

Southampton boy says...
7:22am Mon 29 Oct 12

Fords will not change there plans for anyone the Gov over the past 20years or even more have given Fords money to help them to stay in the UK, if I remember correctly on the last time they let 500 employees go the Gov at the time give Ford £49m to help with the investment in the UK the biggest question is for me how come Honda and others can make it pay to invest in the UK and Fords can't also why is it that Turkey can import to the EU with out paying import tax like other non EU country's we should have been more like Germany as Fords could never pull out her as the cost to the company would break them we have made it to easy and also it seems we have given them the money to pull out its a sad sad times

Report this post »

Southampton boy says...
7:23am Mon 29 Oct 12

May be give the site to Honda and let them build a van here in Southampton they would have a ready trained employees!!!

Report this post »

townieboy says...
7:29am Mon 29 Oct 12

Imagine tne disappointment if they save the plant. Some would miss out on £100,000 pay out and £1200 a month pension. That would hurt.

Report this post »

AndyAndrews says...
9:02am Mon 29 Oct 12

Nick Clegg will be as much use as a chocolate teapot!

Report this post »

Georgem says...
9:48am Mon 29 Oct 12

"Shock closure"? Only if you've had your head buried in the sand whilst reciting "the unions will save us!" over and over again.

Report this post »

ohec says...
10:10am Mon 29 Oct 12

townieboy wrote:
Imagine tne disappointment if they save the plant. Some would miss out on £100,000 pay out and £1200 a month pension. That would hurt.
You are a very sick person.

Report this post »

housewife says...
12:18pm Mon 29 Oct 12

"shock closure"
The 30% oversupply in European car manufacturing has been in the economics text books for nearly 30 years.
Only daft amounts of borrowing and state funding have deferred the decision for years and years.

Report this post »

Shoong says...
2:04pm Mon 29 Oct 12

Let's hope there's enough egg and cress sandwiches and lashings of wine for everyone who attends. Everyone else can eat cake.

Report this post »

click2find

About cookies

We want you to enjoy your visit to our website. That's why we use cookies to enhance your experience. By staying on our website you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more about the cookies we use.

I agree