BAE Systems is planning to haemorrhage a further 1,100 jobs and close a site in Woodford, Cheshire.
The job losses will be felt at numerous sites across the country, including Samlesbury and Warton in Lancashire and Farnborough in Hampshire, as well as the closing Woodford site.
“It has been clear since 2003 that the Woodford site had little future beyond the end of Nimrod MRA4 production, and the workforce has been kept informed since that time,” said the company in a statement. “Despite strenuous efforts to achieve further Nimrod production work, there has been none forthcoming. It is intended that there will be a phased run-down of the site in line with the production programme.”
It said decreasing workloads for production of the Nimrod, Tornado, Hawk and Harrier planes is to blame for the losses at Warton and Farnborough while the end of a contract to supply Airbus means cuts are necessary at Samlesbury.
The CSEU’s general secretary, Hugh Scullion, said: “This is bitterly disappointing news for the staff and for the local communities which rely on these jobs,” said Hugh Scullion, general secretary of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU).
“This is particularly true in the case of the proposed closure of Woodford. The CSEU will work constructively with the company to keep redundancies to a minimum and ensure no compulsory redundancies.
“The CSEU believe there is still an opportunity to extend production at the Woodford site.”
The announcement today says the Woodford site will close at the end of 2012 when the Nimrod work is completed. A total of 630 workers employed at the facility will lose their jobs.
Earlier this year BAE announced the loss of 500 jobs and the closure of factories in Guildford, Leeds and Telford owing to the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.
