Time to draw the line
Amid the acres of newsprint devoted to the growing crisis engulfing the Midlands automotive industry perhaps the most telling comment on the state of the industry actually came from her Majesty's government.
Concluding its six-month investigation into the state of the UK industry, a Trade & Industry Committee summed up that the problems in the industry weren't so much down to British manufacturing but simply one of "getting the right car to the marketplace at the right time".
Exactly. The motor industry is not one of rocket science. Build the right car to fit the right market at the right time and you're laughing. Look at the new Mini - BMW cannot make them fast enough at its plant in Oxford.
Sadly the same isn't true of the great West Midlands triumvirate of Land Rover, MG Rover and Jaguar. We should be seriously worried about all three. Sales at MG Rover were 37 per cent less in August this year than they were in 2003. Ford has already stopped production at one Jaguar plant - how long before its other plant in the Midlands is deemed surplus to requirements? Land Rover at Solihull may have been given a stay of execution, but is it just that?
There are plenty more qualified than me to answer these questions, but the picture is extraordinary if you compare it with what's actually going on in the wider British industry where we are actually almost making a record number of cars a year.
Look at Toyota in Derby where the Japanese company is expanding further in its production of the Avensis and Corolla models. Hardly an English patient there.
So what now? Well, the DTI report makes some dispiriting conclusions. It says that while individual plant closures have not fundamentally undermined the UK's vehicle production capacity, they can have a "serious economic impact on the regions in which they are located". It says in areas like the West Midlands where vehicle production is long-established the impact of closure can "spread out through the supply chain to have an effect considerably beyond the plant itself".
The report also pointed out that a skills shortage at many smaller firms in the automotive supply chain is a problem of increasing urgency.
The future for the West Midlands surely has to be in the IT and technological areas instead. Another revealing statistic is that GDP per head in Coventry is still £31,000 per head higher than the national average, in large part due to its growing and successful IT base. In other words it can live without Browns Lane.
It is time to draw a line under the past. In generations to come it will surely be shown that the past month was when others drew the line for us.
Jim Pendrill, editor
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