TVR jobs and factory to go

Its a very sad day for British car making, Blackpool and more importantly the 250 workers who are to lose their jobs given that TVR has confirmed they are closing the Bispham plant.

The factory was around 500 metres from my former high school. While TVR may have had poor build quality its design and marketing created a real niche product.

I don't know the details but the company's UK death knell seemed to have been served when it was bought out by a Russian tycoon for £25 million around 11 months ago. The announcement today confirmed the closure of the UK factory and a move to Italy, France or Russia (I suspect Russia will win that one!).

This was a struggling firm that required new premises and modern manufacturing techniques, which it looks like its going to get, but not in this country. How we can have let the company fall into the hands of a Russian tycoon beats me.

A failure of north west business and government has occurred somewhere down the line.

Local newspaper report