A forecast of heavy snow for southern England last night prompted Honda to impose a non-production day at its Swindon plant for Wednesday. Britain’s worst winter since 1981 has seen widespread disruption in central and northern districts since before Christmas and, yesterday and last night, heavy snow swept south, bringing falls of up to 40cm in places.
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A Honda spokesman this morning confirmed the plant was not building cars today and that administration staff had struggled to get in.
“We’ll make [the lost production] up over the next few months,” he said.
Honda early last year closed the 300,000-unit plant for four months as demand fell due to the credit crunch. It reopened on 1 June with 3,400 workers after 1,300 took voluntary redundancy. Remaining workers had agreed a 3% pay cut for the next ten months, with managers taking a 5% reduction.
Last October the factory began Jazz production for European markets.
