PSA Peugeot Citroën CEO Jean-Martin Folz has confirmed that its British assembly plant at Ryton, in the English Midlands, will not be building the successor to the current Ryton-produced 206 model.
Mr Folz, speaking yesterday in London as he unveiled PSA’s 2004 financial results, said that Ryton would continue to build the 206 model and that the successor model – dubbed 207 – would be made at other plants within the PSA Group.
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Confirmation that Ryton will become the 206 run-out plant without any firm plan for future models will come as a blow to the Ryton plant’s supporters who believed that EU approval in the autumn of last year for a UK government grant had secured the future production of the 207.
Mr Folz declined to give any guarantees – or a minimum period – on how long the 206 model would continue to be made in Ryton after the 207’s market introduction, but he said that there was a continuing substantial role for the 206 and also a number of 206 CKD kit export contracts that would still need to be met in the future.
He did refer once again to the sterling-euro issue, saying that it was still an issue for Ryton while exchange rate uncertainties persisted.
Within PSA, Ryton was in the running for the 207 model and the plant had secured EU approval for a €21 million British government grant as part of the necessary investment.
However, Folz said that the EU’s lengthy approval process – it took two years to get the grant approved – meant that the decision to make the car elsewhere had already been taken by the time approval was granted.
