I do not care ** for what the reason is Honda is closing the Swindon plant, my thoughts are with the 3,000 permanent and possibly another thousand temporary and contract workers and their families who will lose their jobs over the next 3 years. These are only the beginning. This close down will spread to many other businesses in the own, who will suffer as family incomes fall and to the many companies whose businesses are dependent on supplying the Honda works from everything from car parts to cleaning services. Total job losses could well be twice the number of direct job losses
Swindon is a large industrial town in a large rural hinterland, there are no other industrial centres offering similar jobs within much less than a hundred miles from the town where workers can look for alternative employment. Swindon has always been far too dependent on one or two very large employers - first the railways and now Honda.
It is essential that there are restructuring plans drawn up for Swindon that will discourage very big employers from moving there and encouraging medium and small company's to move there, each offering hundreds of jobs rather than thousands.