Good news for British-built cars

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Next-generation Astra to be built in Britain
Production at Ellesmere Port to start in 2010
900 jobs had been lost at the plant last May

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Fortunes have turned at Vauxhall's UK Ellesmere Port manufacturing plant, as it was announced today that the factory will build the next-generation Astra, due in 2010.

Around 900 jobs were lost at the plant last May as Vauxhall's owner, General Motors, cut back an entire shift from production of the current Astra.

At that time GM said Ellesmere Port could still win allocation for the production of future cars but because Peugeot had announced the complete closure of its UK Ryton plant the month before, many were pessimistic about the Vauxhall factory's chances.

Today, however, GM has confirmed that Ellesmere Port will share production of the car along with factories in Germany, Sweden and Poland. GM says it will invest more than £2 billion at the plants to increase productivity by 30%, but hasn't revealed how this will be shared out among the four factories.

• Polls of whatcar.com readers found that 43% consider it important that their car is built in Britain, while 43% also thought Vauxhall was the most British brand.