General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Whups

At it’s peak in 1974 the Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port employed 12,000 people.
Before David Cameron announced that there would be an EU referendum the headcount had fallen to 1800.
There are two threats to Vauxhall’s future. If the French parent company takes action to correct the excess capacity in the Opel factories. It will involve factory closures in Germany and may have a knock on effect at Vauxhall.
However, the bigger threat to Ellesmere Port comes from the inevitable change of basic architecture in future models which will be based on Peugeot platforms rather than General Motors platforms.
There is over capacity in the Peugeot/Citroen factories in France which is probably one of the most difficult places to close a factory. Given that the French Government owns almost 14% of Peugeot/Citroen the odds on Vauxhall surviving in it’s present form are slim.
In my view one of the two Vauxhall plants will close. If The Ellesmere Port plant can be re jigged to incorporate the Luton van production then it may well survive and prosper.