Vauxhall chiefs shrug off Ellesmere Port talk

Feb 15 2012 by Alistair Houghton, Heswall News

WIRRAL Vauxhall workers have been given reassurances as parent company General Motors looks to cut costs further.

A shock report in New York’s Wall Street Journal suggested it was considering closing plants, including Ellesmere Port.

Senior Vauxhall staff who gathered in London last week for the leaving dinner of GM Europe president and former Ellesmere Port plant manager Nick Reilly accepted that GM Europe would have to find ways to cut costs.

But they said the Ellesmere Port report was just “speculation”.

And they hailed the success of the Ellesmere Port-built Astra and the way the plant had shaken off a difficult reputation from the 80s to become one of the company’s best-performing sites.

Mr Reilly was plant manager at Ellesmere Port in the 1990s and worked closely with unions to improve performance at the then-troubled site.

He praised the way staff at Ellesmere Port had responded to the changes, and had worked with managers to keep the site open through recessions.

Today the site, which employs more than 2,000 people, is one of GM’s best-performing global sites.

Its medium-term future was secured when it was chosen to build the new generation of the best-selling Astra.

Mr Reilly said Ellesmere Port’s recent successes meant it was well-placed to be chosen as the European home for the Ampera electric car – but said a decision was some time away.

John Fetherstone, trade union convenor at Ellesmere Port, also dismissed the closure reports as “speculation”.