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Page 7
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Transit production at Southampton to be cut
FORD'S MANUFACTURING plant in Southampton, home of the Transit van, is to halve its production by 2011.
Currently, the site produces 75,000 Transit vans a year, but Ford plans to wind down production to 35,000 over the next three years.
Southampton will now become the home of chassis cab variants for the next model of the Transit, in what Ford describes as a "financially viable" investment.
Plant manager Martin Chapman says in a memo to staff: "Such a plan would still require significant investment in Southampton, and also require reductions in operating costs to enable the financial targets for the programme to be protected.
"The plan would provide the plant with a firm role in Transit manufacturing into the next decade," he adds.
However, the union Unite believes the plan would lead to the closure of Southampton in the long term.
Unites Dave Osborne says: "The UK is Ford's biggest European market. If it can invest $653m (,365.8m) in a plant in Romania, it can invest 5200m (£112m) in the UK."