Fears that Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port factory could close have been allayed with news that GM, the firm’s owner since 1925, has decided to build the new Astra at the plant.
In all, 700 jobs will be created, and the 2,100 jobs that already exist will be safeguarded. This is undeniably good news for a firm that was expecting the worst.
On the flip side, it is still likely that a GM-owned plant on mainland Europe will be shut. The Opel plant in Bochum, Germany, may well be a target for this. That said, production of the Chevrolet range, which is currently manufactured in Asia, may be moved to a European plant.
While the core 700 jobs are of course the main focus, it is believed that many more jobs in the component manufacturing industry will be saved – or indeed be created. Around £1bn is expected to be spent on components over the five year production period of the new Astra (2015 – 2020), creating an estimated 3000 jobs.
Following an investment of £125m in the Ellesmere Port plant, the site will have a capacity to produce 220,000 vehicles a year.
Given the status of Vauxhall as a firm that appeared to be about to suffer the commercial equivalent of a car breakdown, it might have been thought that some financial inducements were offered by the Government to GM, but according to Business Secretary, Vince Cable, this was not the case.
Breakdown Cover from 
