Inside Britain's largest train factory, frustrated Alstom staff in Derby fear the production lines are about to close forever without immediate government help
The Alstom train factory at Litchurch Lane in Derby is the largest in the UK Inside Britain's largest train factory, frustrated Alstom staff in Derby fear the production lines are about to close forever without immediate government helpRob is Special Projects Editor at i. He won the Legal Reporting Award in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Washington Post's Laurence Stern Fellowship and Amnesty's Gaby Rado Prize in 2015.Today, its squadron of fork-lift trucks sits motionless.
Bickerton, 63, has two grandchildren working here. They started as apprentices and both thought they would have a “job for life”, he says, working here “man and boy”. Instead, they may also find themselves jobless soon. “You’ve got generations of people working here – that sadly looks like it potentially could come to an end,” he says.
The future of Hitachi’s factory is also in doubt. Though the north-eastern plant has more time than Derby, it faces a similar impending crisis over a lack of orders.Alstom’s managing director for UK and Ireland, Nick Crossfield, says he has been trying to persuade the Government to activate small extensions on existing contracts to keep his site just busy enough to stay open. He has lobbied for tenders on forthcoming contracts to be issued early and for refurbishment work to be moved to Derby.
After all, nobody is questioning the quality of their work. Alstom’s Aventra trains are used across the country, from the West Midlands to East Anglia and on the London Overground.Louise Haigh, Labour’s shadow Transport Secretary, blames the Government’s “incompetence and utter lack of interest in industrial strategy”. As a result, she says, “our HS2 trains could end up being built abroad”.
Hitachi has been asking for similar arrangements for Newton Aycliffe, to work on more trains for existing orders. It declined to comment for this article. But its email to local stakeholders, which became public last month, admitted that “the Government has deemed the risk of legal challenge associated with awarding the contract option as too high to proceed at this juncture”.
She maintains that the DfT and the two companies should “never have gotten into this mess in the first place”, adding: “If I were Transport Secretary today, I’d be in Derby working with management and the workforce on every available option to protect jobs.” The controversy surrounding the Government’s decision to scrap the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2, having already abandoned the line to Leeds – plus the suggestion that the remaining track may not stretch to London’s Euston terminus – means that some have blamed delays to the project for Derby’s woes.
Alstom restarted consultations with staff in the last fortnight. A company spokesperson said: “We have worked constructively with the Government on securing a sustainable future for Derby Litchurch Lane, but after 10 months of discussions we have run out of time, and the production lines have stopped. We will now consult with our staff, with trades unions and with our UK supply chain to provide as much certainty as we can.
“I’m concerned about the mindset and the wellbeing of people here,” he says. “A lot of people are walking around heads bowed. Morale is very difficult to keep at a level that makes us operational.”
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