Old Rootes Ryton Plant follows Longbridge on to the scrap heap -- sad final footnote in the history of British motor industry.
Yep,
Second that Sister in law and Partner both work there new house and 9 week old baby. 
Talking to them on Sunday they were saying that they have one of the best production rates / lowest staffing of the Pergeot Citreon group.
But its easier/cheeper for a french company to shut a UK plant rather than a french one .
I blame the Uk gouvernment not a fu**ing clue 
European reality bites I'm afraid.... I have to personally develop business in our "cheaper labour" Euro-states. Czech Rep. ran, USA
owned companies paying staff less than £100/week is justification for moving engineering/assembly plants abroad. Technology is now so portable... over
the last 5 years I have seen wages in Czech Rep. grow 3 fold.
I will likely be out of a job in the UK within the next 5-6 years as UK Engineering will not justify my position... sad, but a reality.
Sorry to hear about it - that leaves only Ford, Toyota and Vauxhall minor manufacturing plants and I know they have plans to go soon - there's
another 10,000 jobs!
doesnt nissan have one too in sunderland(it used to be the most productive plant outside the far east).
the pug plant closing could have been seen coming for quite a while though with 206 production stopping as it is replaced just as alot of eastern
europe joins the eu and offering huge grants to encourage manufacturing over there.
its the eu's fault as much as the uk government. in the end peugeot are in a very competitve area of the market and margins are low they will do
anything that lowers cost.
quote:
Originally posted by Agriv8
I blame the Uk gouvernment not a fu**ing clue
Don't want to get too political, but manufacturing in this country was massacred by Thatcher's government, while voters were obviously too
busy looking in the opposite direction, watching all the young kids getting rich in the City de-regulation and spending their share windfalls from all
the publically-owned utilities being sold off to fund short-term tax cuts.
BTW, my shoes are made in England!
Eddy
I put a post on another forum about this very subject - that the west should be shitting itself from the likes of China.
Manufacturing will end up in these places because they're cheap. They also have no workers rights/insurance/pensions or representation
(unions)
Eventually these places will have rights etc and their labour costs will rocket (note, call centres in India are now being replaced with ones in South
Africa as costs are cheaper). As these costs go up, it will then dawn on the west that jobs were lost for nothing. People will have bought that cheap
TV etc, only to find that it will then cost the same as a UK produced item, with no british capability to so so anymore.
Bear in mind that Rover is now in China - if Nanjing can sell the %age of cars to its pop that Rover sold in this country, Nanjing will be producing
1.5m car a year.
Then they'll become biggest in the world and buy Ford, BMW etc and move prod to China.
End of western economies.
Suggest you stop buying from such places.
I did.
Simon
[Edited on 18/4/06 by Simon]
so are mine - doc martins. a pair of work shoes lasts me around 5 years 
thats 10 pounds a year or 5 pounds a foot. Does for me.
actually, this pair has lasted longer than that ............ hmmm......
Thatcher only reacted to the over powerful trade unions that were destroying the quality and production of uk produced goods.
Don't forget that the wealth generated by thatcher is what is paying for all the crap social policies offered by the present government. When
that is gone, we are really in the mire.
As always, engineering is only missed once it is gone. Ship building, aircraft industry, car industry etc are all going or gone.
OK - I was oversimplifying (and by complaining about the Thatcher era, please don't get the impression that I'm enamoured of the current
shower of tossers) but at least we used to have the utilities in public ownership, mining, steel and shipbulding industries, some decent manufacturing
(not all British workers were on a 30-minute working day and 7hr 30min teabreak in the 1970s!) and some sense of pride, however misplaced, in
"Buying British".
It seems like a shame that the country of Bessemer, Brunel, Babbage, Turing, Barnes-Wallis, Camm, Mitchell, Whittle, Cockerell and countless others
should be reduced to worrying about the loss of a Frog car factory.
Eddy
quote:
Originally posted by Jon Ison
quote:
Originally posted by Agriv8
I blame the Uk gouvernment not a fu**ing clue
Would that be the same government that presided over loads of job loss's in the eighties ??? mine included. Oh and all those house repossessions too ??
I worked for an engineering company that closed in the late 90's, we made buckets and arms for JCB amongst other things, lost the contract too a Czech company that quoted a complete arm/bucket fully welded and painted delivered too door for less than we could purchase materials for.
Another example, the company name is on the tip of my tongue, but they where good customers of ours, made front axles and uprights for hgv's, based in Bromsgrove, anyhow, the company was put up for sale and whilst still making a small profit it was sold too developers as the land was worth more too build on than the business.
Chris's comments are well true, where was our TVs made, clothes we wear, our shoes, cars, need I go on ?
[Edited on 18/4/06 by Jon Ison]
Its the loss of the engineering and and all the jobs in the 'Supply chain'. Engineering Built the UK and put it on the MAP.
just thinking that such heritage can just be left to wither away.
I understand Market forces and lowering production costs and the bottom line of the balance sheet.
I just see it as a step in the wrong direction
Unfortunately things seem to be going from bad to worse.
The Government seems to be selling off anything they can - who would have imagined the port of Dover being sold?
PS. I don't necessarily agree with what Thatcher did, but I can understand why she did what she did. Consider the time and quality of the road
works carried out here - USA and France in particular work far quicker and produce better quality roads. Given the choice, bring in the foreign
contracters to get better roads quicker. Unfair on the british workers but they have had so long to improve.
[Edited on 19/4/06 by jimmyjoebob]
Factories in eastern Europe won't last long , pretty soon they will be undercut by China and Vietnam. Of course why it wasn't a French
plant is down to the relative strength of the pound against the Euro, French labour laws and the fact the French goverment tradditionally break every
european law in existance to keep a french plant open.
What angers me about Ryton is that it always had a much better quality record than the other plant Peugeot got from Chrysler, I used to think the old
Simca Poissy was bad until Chrysler started building cars in Spain.
bt,
It wasn't the French factory that closed because the French would have (yet again) gone on strike and blocked the tunnel/ports etc.
And the froggy gov would have stood up for them.
Not like T. Bliar or spendthift tosser, or twat two jags.
ATB
Simon
Doc Martins were down the road from me at Rushden.
A year or so ago, they closed the plant and moved production abroad.
check the label if your DMs are new - they wont be made in britain!
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
so are mine - doc martins. a pair of work shoes lasts me around 5 years
actually, this pair has lasted longer than that ............ hmmm......
The comany that made me redundant end of 2004 also moved their production to Czeck republic. Its been a disaster for them.
When they get quality or manufacturing issues, they have to ship all the machines back to them from UK for modification - sometimes 2 or 3 times. Also
the 'cheap labour' isnt as cheap after a while. Once they have skills other than picking cabbages, they up and leave and go somewhere else,
forcing an increase in salaries.
At the end of the day, we may lose all our manufacturing and much of our design base in the UK. Im pretty pleased my kids are going into law or
administration. Working with your hands is going out of fahion here. All we will need is salesmen, warehouse people, and managers, to shift the goods
around from China.
If you look on the 1905 census site, you will see lots of jobs that just dont exist anymore as professions - maids, footmen, miners, horsemen,
thatchers, chimney sweeps, etc. Perhaps things just move on and careers turn into other things.
Im pessimistic about it all - i just hope i can get 13 more years to my selected retirement age without having to downsize to collecting trollies from
tescos car park
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Factories in eastern Europe won't last long , pretty soon they will be undercut by China and Vietnam. Of course why it wasn't a French plant is down to the relative strength of the pound against the Euro, French labour laws and the fact the French goverment tradditionally break every european law in existance to keep a french plant open.
What angers me about Ryton is that it always had a much better quality record than the other plant Peugeot got from Chrysler, I used to think the old Simca Poissy was bad until Chrysler started building cars in Spain.
quote:
Originally posted by steve_gus
Doc Martins were down the road from me at Rushden.
A year or so ago, they closed the plant and moved production abroad.
check the label if your DMs are new - they wont be made in britain!
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
so are mine - doc martins. a pair of work shoes lasts me around 5 years
actually, this pair has lasted longer than that ............ hmmm......
[Edited on 20/4/06 by steve_gus]
Doc martins are now made in China, they import them and finish in this country , I think that means sticking an assembled in UK sticker in them .My
brother worked for them and commented on the fact that they were going down the pan and owed a lot to American banks , they later sent all production
plant to China.
I am in agreement that we rely far to much on cheap chinese imports and sooner or later the chinese are going to demand a proper standard of living
etc and there artificially devalued money will be worth its proper value and we wont be able top afford to buy anything from them , or produce
anything in this country any more.
It also worrys me the amount of cheap eastern european labour now relied on in this country is driving down our standard of living and wage rates.
Paul.
quote:
Originally posted by steve_gus
Doc Martins were down the road from me at Rushden.
A year or so ago, they closed the plant and moved production abroad.
check the label if your DMs are new - they wont be made in britain!
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
so are mine - doc martins. a pair of work shoes lasts me around 5 years
actually, this pair has lasted longer than that ............ hmmm......
[Edited on 20/4/06 by steve_gus]