Closure Fears For Ford Bridgend’s Engine Plant
By Paul Homewood
An announcement on the proposed closure of Ford’s Bridgend plant will be made on Thursday, the BBC has been told.
Ford Europe will meet union leaders at its Essex headquarters amid fears over the factory’s future.
The GMB fears the news could "mean disaster" for the plant, which opened in 1980 and employs 1,700 workers.
Ford said it would not comment on speculation and Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said he was in ongoing dialogue with the company.
It comes just months after Ford said it was cutting its Welsh workforce by 1,000, with 370 going in a first phase.
Investment in the new Dragon engine was scaled back, while production of an engine for Jaguar Land Rover is due to end this year.
There has already been concern about whether the plant would be viable making only 125,000 Dragon petrol engines a year.
It comes just days after car sales in the UK fell again and the BBC expects Ford will be in touch with Welsh Government ministers first thing in the morning.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48533790
Bridgend’s future has been uncertain for the last four years (see here and here), so you can forget about all of the Brexit excuses being put about.
What is certain is that if carmakers such as Ford are told that Europe is going to rapidly phase out petrol cars in favour of EVs, they will no longer be prepared to invest billions in new engine and car assembly lines.
After all, would you?
And we can all guess where the new generation of electric cars will be built.
The next domino to fall could well be Ford Dagenham, which is Ford’s largest producer of diesel engines. Its global presence is at the moment unchallengeable, but if Europe continues with its suicidal obsession with global warming, how much longer will that be the case?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
And of course if you ran a company manufacturing major capital goods with the processes needing huge amounts of power, would you keep the production plants in countries committed to ever upward-spiralling energy costs as a result of the replacement of cheap power with renewables?
Of course not – at the first opportunity and any half-decent excuse, you’d switch production to countries like China who don’t give a stuff about global warming and who will keep energy costs much lower.
Don’t worry, I see Tory Leadership favourite Boris has just signed up to the ‘zero carbon by 2050’ mantra with the promise of squillions of (subsidised?) ‘green jobs’ to replace all of those real jobs being destroyed now by the very same green policies. Oh, look, there’s a unicorn. His main rival for the Tory throne, Greta Gove, is even more away with the fairies when it comes to climeageddon policies. Interesting times these when a governing party of a major world economy not only fatally wounds themselves by their disastrous handling of a political issue, such as Brexit, but then happily seems to want to administer the coup de grace themselves by pledging to obliterate their economy too with policies straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It’s very grim indeed folks.
“Boris has just signed up to the ‘zero carbon by 2050’ mantra”
And bang goes any (small) chance the Tories had…
When the global warming scare eventually fades, as it will, will Ford have a case to prosecute those responsible for these closures?
Their X-employees might.
This is another example of the law of unintended consequences. Alternatively it is another example of the consequences of being ruled by idiots who are gullible enough to have been taken in by the green scam (climate change scam).
Drain that swamp.
“…climate change…”
From the satellites…
RSS Global Temperature Anomaly for May, DOWN by 0.17 C compared to April.
It appears that the days of most people being able to afford to purchase individual vehicular transport are ending.
Electric cars are not sufficiently developed nor will they ever be without a major techological breakthrough re batteries, to wit the resources of not least Li appear to be limited by availability and size of deposit.
As per, there is another agenda going on here, still we might be able to buy new petrol engined motors made in North korea, the PRC and India, Russia, Indonesia etc, one problem emissions testing and that’s what it’s all about folks the green blob won’t állow you to drive fossil fueled cars, meanwhile the world looks on and scoffs.
Stopping people from owning cars is part of the shadowy agenda behind much of what is happening in the motor industry. Apparently we are all clamoring for driverless cars, and will be happy to wait for one to arrive all by itself when needed. I predict that vandalism by the dispossessed will kill that agenda.
I can foresee a new “sport” of deliberately confusing self driving cars into coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road. That’s the less serious possibility – far worse will be the inevitable software “hacks”, which have the potential for some really nasty accidents…
Nightly game of unplug the electric car anyone?
I’ve thought of that, too, Dave Ward. Were I still in high school, I’d definitely be trying to figure out how to spoof autonomous cars.
I think that we need to rid ourselves of the current political class with considerable urgency before they can do any more damage. I believe that the next election is about three years away. What can we do in the meantime to ensure that the whole lot of them are sent packing?
My late Brother in law Dave had an interview with Fords in Bridgend after he was made redundant when they closed the Mine where he worked after the Miners strike. He did not get the job and never worked again. His Pension was just about enough to get by on.
My Brother Mike had an interview with Fords in Bridgend after he was made redundant when they closed RAF St Athan’s air Base with over a thousand redundancies. He did not get the job at Fords he continued to work in heavy engineering on railway wheels in Cardiff until he was 68.
At one time during the war the air base had 14000 personnel. My Father had worked at St Athan’s twice once in 1959 – 1960 and again in 1972 – 1984.
I lived in RAF housing on Blackbird road on St Athens air base and went to school on the Air Base 1959 – 1960
We used to go to the annual air show at the Base they also had an extensive air museum.
I worked in south wales from 1971-2018 when I retired. During that time I was made redundant four times as well as being sacked twice. I also left quite a few jobs of my own accord. I was self employed for a while. I only spent short periods unemployed.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
Good old Wales, a climate emergency declared, complicit in the demise of diesel, and M4 relief road cancelled due to climate concerns. They wonder why Ford Bridgend will close. The Welsh Government has bought the CO2 scam hook line and sinker. For further insight into their collective insanity their “prosperity for all” publication is full of aspiration, buzz words but little practical content.
Yes, I do live in Wales.
Click to access 190321-prosperity-for-all-a-low-carbon-wales-en.pdf
In our local ville St Cyprien on the Dordogne the municipality has virtue signalled two charging points on the municipal car park. Both U/S, Never seem an EV there.
Is mann-made global warming the greatest fraud in human history? All because not one of the climate alarmists understands control theory and feedback and their computer models all suffer from GIGO.
https://bit.ly/2WjBaMw
I do not know about man-made global warming being the greatest fraud in human history.
It has got a way to got to compete with religion. Thousands of years from the Pyramids to the Giant cathedrals and millions of churches. Vast resources have been spent to worship something you can not see.
Then there is war and defence. America currently spends billions on defence as well as its black budget. War debt takes decades to pay off.
Then there is Banking where a few very rich and powerful people have managed to get the right to create money out of thin air and lend it to the government and the rest of as with interest. Imaginary money created on computers creating debt and a life time of paying it off for us all. Know that is fraud.
Nobody (well hardly anyone in the first world) ‘does’ traditional religion anymore. This belief in AGW is the replacement, which is why it is so insidious.
I would just like to say that traditional religions have enhanced civilis ation immensely. The world would be a poorer place without the wonderful art and architecture inspired by beliefs. Unfortunately, the current belief will have the opposite effect by destroying civilisation.
I know which version I prefer.
Bit late to the party with this perhaps, but it seems the BBC left some important events off their chart:
Auntie not presenting a true picture? I can scarce believe it!