Alstom UK & Ireland MD Nick Crossfield says its train building plant at Derby Litchurch Lane has less than six weeks of production, and that if decisions aren’t made on additional work for the site, ‘it all goes’.
Speaking at a special meeting of the Transport Committee on 6 December, he said the timing of decisions on future orders such as new trains for Southeastern and TransPennine Express – to name two examples – is critical: ‘If I do not get clarity in the next six weeks—it is six weeks, guys—it all goes.’
He warned that the Derby facility could transition from a site which employs 3,000 people and supports a further 15,000 in the supply chain to a much smaller facility assembling components manufactured elsewhere: ‘in the future Southeastern will be pulling in from China and the middle east. We will take our wiring loom from north Africa. We will take our body panels, which will come in pre-pressed and ready for flat pack, from China. We will take frames from central and eastern Europe. It …
