Launching Leyland National project
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• On Friday the Prime Minister inaugurated the construction of the new Leyland National bus manufacturing plant at Lillyhall, near Workington, Cumberland, and afterwards toured the 40-acre site in company with senior executives of British Leyland and the National Bus Company who have an equal share in the project.
The highlight of the inaugural ceremony was Mr. Wilson's setting up of a commemorative bench mark for the site, and the taking of the' first levels on this mark, which will eventually be located in the main entrance area of the factory. Later he said that what was particularly interesting was the establishment of a new company, part public enterprise and part private enterprise. Maybe, he said, there were those who thought it should be 100 per cent nationalized or 100 per cent denationalized but the world's appetite for new buses would not await doctrinaire arguments.
NBC chairman Mr Norman Todd said the most extensive and detailed research programme ever mounted in the history of bus production had gone into this project; he knew because he had just received the bill for half of it Through its subsidiaries NBC owned and operated' 23,000 vehicles in England and Wales and needed to spend some £10m a year on vehicle purchase. Thus they had a substantial load for Leyland National, provided they could get what they wanted at the right price. Not all orders would go to Lillyhall as there were, of course, double-deckers, coaches and specials to be bought.