Roger Habgood

NEW FACILITY: Ford Motor Company has opened a new £24 million facility at its UK headquarters in Essex, reaffirming the Dunton Campus’ vital role in delivering Ford’s European electric vehicle plans. The new Propulsion Development Laboratory brings Ford's investment at the site to more than £70 million in the last two years alone after recently investing £47 million in the adjacent Advanced Propulsion Laboratory (APL) and separate E:PRiME (Electrified Powertrain in Manufacturing Engineering) prototype build facility. The Propulsion Development Laboratory comprises eight vehicle-size rooms capable of testing electric power units and propulsion systems – maximising development time, including round-the-clock component reliability sign off. The new facility's test rooms are configured to test EV, hybrid and combustion powertrains, flexing between technologies in anticipation of market changes and customer requirements. #UKmfg

NEW FACTORY: This is South Korean-owned SeAH Wind's new £400 million monopile manufacturing plant - the largest facility of its type in the world. Under construction at Teesworks on Teesside, the mammoth 1.13million sq ft factory is expected to create 750 direct jobs plus 1,500 across the supply chain. #UKmfg

Manufacturing matters. With an annual output of £224 billion, the UK has leapfrogged France and is now the EIGHTH largest manufacturer in the world. There has never been a more important time to support and promote the vital sector which employs 2.6 million people. Today is National Manufacturing Day and British manufacturers are opening their doors as part of a UK-wide Open House. The aim of Make UK's National Manufacturing Day is to encourage all age groups - from school leavers to more experienced workers - to consider careers in manufacturing. #STEM #UKmfg

BOOM! After a bumper August, there are now a record 14,535 aircraft on order — at current production rates, this global aircraft backlog is worth around £219 billion to the UK and represents more than 10 years of advanced manufacturing work. This is undoubtedly great news for the UK’s world-class aerospace sector which enjoys an annual turnover of £28 billion and employs more than 108,000 people. #UKmfg

BOOM! Airbus plans to create more than 1,100 jobs in Britain, increasing the world's biggest producer of commercial airliners' 11,500-strong UK workforce by almost 10%. The jobs announcement comes as figures show Airbus contributed £7 billion to the UK economy last year, supported 79,000 jobs in the wider aerospace and defence sectors, and spent almost £4 billion with British suppliers. Airbus recently pledged to open Britain’s first new helicopter factory in decades, creating hundreds of jobs and generating billions of pounds of export revenue, if the MoD chooses it to build a new generation of helicopters to replace the UK’s ageing fleet of Pumas. If successful with its tender, Airbus plans to build a new helicopter production line at its vast wing manufacturing plant in Broughton which would become the sole Airbus site for the production of H175M military helicopters around the world. #UKmfg

It has been a phenomenal summer for the British automotive industry with billions of pounds invested, and thousands of jobs created and secured: July: Jaguar Land Rover-owner Tata announced plans to build a new £4 billion battery manufacturing plant in Somerset. The huge investment is expected to create more than 9,000 jobs. July: Trade association SMMT announced that UK car production soared 11.7% in the first half of the year to 450,168 units. July:: Aston Martin officially opened the first phase of its new £200 million F1 factory in Silverstone. When complete, 700 people will be based at the 400,000 sq ft AMR Technology Campus. August: Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) announced plans to create 300 jobs in the West Midlands to support a ramp up in Range Rover production and the development of next generation electric models. August: McMurtry Automotive, best known for best known for the electric Spéirling hypercar which famously smashed Goodwood’s Festival of Speed hill climb record last year, submitted plans for a new multi-million pound factory in Wotton-under-Edge near Stroud in Gloucestershire. August: Lotus submitted plans for a new electric vehicle production facility as part of a major expansion of its Hethel manufacturing plant in Norfolk. In total, three new facilities are set to be built at the historic site to support the transition to EV sports car production and the expansion of its world-renowned engineering consultancy. September: The first electric vehicles started rolling off the production line at Stellantis’ Ellesmere Port plant following a £100 million investment programme that secured the site’s future and more than 1,000 jobs. September: Built in Britain at Burnaston, Toyota unveiled the world's first hydrogen-fuelled Hilux pick-up. September: Roll-Royce Motor Cars submitted plans for a major expansion of its Goodwood manufacturing plant. September: Wrightbus launched a major recruitment drive with hundreds of jobs and apprenticeships available at its Ballymena manufacturing plant. September: BMW announced a £600 million investment at its Oxford and Swindon plants to prepare the factories for electric MINI production, securing more than 4,000 British jobs. #UKmfg

BUILT IN BRITAIN: The first electric vehicles have started rolling off the production line at Stellantis’ Ellesmere Port plant following a £100 million investment programme that secured the site’s future and more than 1,000 jobs. Ellesmere Port is the UK’s first EV-only manufacturing plant and the first Stellantis plant globally dedicated to electric vehicles. The Cheshire site will produce the Vauxhall Combo Electric, Opel Combo Electric, Peugeot e-Partner, Citroën ë-Berlingo and (announced today) the Fiat E-Doblò vans. From 2024, Ellesmere Port will also produce a range of electric passenger vehicles across the Stellantis brands, including the Vauxhall Combo Life Electric, Peugeot e-Rifter and Citroën ë-Berlingo MPVs. #UKmfg

UPDATE: German retailer Lidl has opened a new £300 million food distribution centre in Luton, Bedfordshire. The huge 1.2 million sq ft facility - the firm's biggest warehouse in the world - is expected to create 1,500 jobs. #BritishJobs🇬🇧

Six months of growth for UK car production! ▪️ Production surges 31.6% in July - the sixth consecutive month of growth ▪️ Double digit rises in demand from overseas & UK, up 36.1% and 13.7% respectively ▪️ Year-to-date, British factories turn out 526,619 cars, with volumes up 14.2% The UK's thriving automotive sector, comprising dozens of OEMs and more than 2,500 suppliers, accounts for 10% of total UK exports and employs almost 800,000 people. Tata, Ford, Bentley Motors, Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover and Stellantis have already pledged to invest £22.98 billion in the UK as they switch to electric vehicle production. #UKmfg

Just weeks after transferring production from Eastern Europe to its historic home in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, Britten-Norman - the UK’s only sovereign commercial aircraft manufacturer - has secured a c£20 million export order from Australia's Torres Strait Air. The ten new Islander aircraft for the Australian air charter operator will be amongst the first to be produced from the UK manufacturer’s new production line at its Bembridge Airport site. #UKmfg