Opel/Vauxhall has confirmed it had a commercial bid for its Antwerp plant but maintained it was not sufficiently supported by a business plan detailed enough.

CEO Nick Reilly  had raised hopes last week at the Paris show that this week would see a firm bidder for the Astra plant come forward but the automaker yesterday (4 October) dashed any chance of an industrial investor for the site.

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Unions condemned the decision.

A General Motors spokeswoman in Belgium told just-auto GM had evaluated one of the bids put forward as “supported by a lot of commercial conditions and not with a business plan.”

That lack of detail appears to have scuppered any industrial future for the plant for the time being, although GM is holding out a faint hope that a further bid might come forward before production is due to end on 31 December.

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“Perhaps it will be the end unless somebody comes to us and then of course we will be ready to discuss,” said the spokeswoman.

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“It is the end for the active search in the sector that could cover Antwerp’s activities.”

The Belgian site produces all variants of the Opel Astra and there are “at least” a further 10,000 cars due to be produced by the December closure deadline.

Opel also firmly rebuffed union suggestions it had not allowed sufficient time for bids to come forward. “We agreed the deadline from the beginning with all concerned parties and agreed 30 September,” said the spokeswoman.

“On the other hand, once we got into this investor search, we did it very intensely.”

Belgian unions were holding a conference call today (5 October) to discuss the situation.