Vauxhall really couldn’t be any clearer.
As the UK manufacturer turns in sparkling numbers for its three-variant Opel/Vauxhall Astra model line – overall volume is predicted to be up 50% – Ellesmere Port’s plant director Tony Francavilla turned his attention to the supply chain at home – and didn’t pull his punches.
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Speaking to just-auto in his office overlooking the Ellesmere Port car park – where employees’ cars are three-quarters Vauxhall, as he proudly pointed out – Francavilla made the case for far greater emphasis on the British supply chain.
Despite securing a fairly hefty GBP170m (US$278m) of UK contracts, the Canadian factory boss made it very clear this was “a drop in the bucket”.
Warming to his theme, Francavilla insisted: “We are at a huge disadvantage relative to assemblers on the continent” and that more attention needed to be paid to shoring up the supplier base in the UK.
The relatively new government in Britain made manufacturing one of its priorities on being elected but it seems there could be a considerable lag between speeches and actions if Francavilla’s words are anything to go by.
Britain – once dubbed the ‘workshop of the world’ though a long time ago – used to manufacture a vast plethora of goods but now produces a fraction of what it once did.
Indeed, GM Europe chief executive Nick Reilly was recently quoted by the BBC bemoaning the the fact that the Luton plant had to import a significant percentage of parts.
He highlighted the lack of UK-based suppliers which made being competitive increasingly challenging which was one of the most “critical” issues facing the local car industry.
“It’s not enough to have Nissan, Toyota, Vauxhall, manufacturing the products because we’ll never be able to compete with another country where the suppliers are surrounding the car plants,” he said.
UK business secretary Vince Cable has made some warm noises on the need for manufacturing to reassert itself as a way of creating new jobs and combating some tough economic times.
And, in fairness to the government in which he is a minister, it recently announced a GBP450m investment programme through the Regional Growth Fund (RGF), in which Vauxhall’s Luton plant as well as Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover will benefit.
GM recently said announced the next generation Vivaro van would be built at the Bedfordshire site, continuing the joint venture with Renault and safeguarding around 1,500 jobs, helped by a conditional RGF allocation, but this doesn’t really address Francavilla’s plea for British manufacturers to “come back into the fray” and supply UK businesses from the UK.
“To me it is a no-brainer, it is a business opportunity,” was the Ellesmere Port chief’s plea.
To emphasise the point as we talked, just outside the massive plant a long line of lorries queued up to enter the site.
And a significant number of them were from points somewhere on the European continent.
