Leyland shuts site
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HE FAST-COLLAPSING doublekeck bus market has claimed nother victim. Leyland Bus is to lose its Bristol Commercial Pellicles plant in November and ransfer Olympian production to Vorkington, ALAN MILLAR reeds.
All 530 jct,bs at the Bristol facary will be phased out between he summer and final closure, Ind Olympian chassis producion will be phased in on the Ley3nd Titan production line at Vorkin.gton over a similar No additional jobs are being reated at Workington, and Leyand is confident that it can build )Iympians on the new arrange-: nents without investing in any idditional machinery.
The Bristol factory, opened in 935, has been selected for cleure because its buildings and acilities are old and it is not conidered to have much potential or further development.
Last year, 470 Olympians were )uilt there, most of them for the ast-shrinking British market. In iII, 1,495 new double-deckers vere registered in _Britain last rear, and the market is expected o shrink to around 1,100 this rear. In 1981, 2,149 were sold and in 1980 there were 2,277. Next year it will be worse, when new bus grant ends.
The bad news for Bristol is a lifeline for Workington, which need no longer depend on the even more sadly depleted orders for the Leyland National singledecker, the model for which the factory was built in 1970.
Workington has never achieved the 2,000-a-year production target once set for the National, but did produce most of the 947 single-deck buses built for the home market in 1979. That market fell to 138 last year, and it is expected to shrink to around 100 this year.
While sales of Gardner-engined models and pilot body orders for British Rail trains will help to keep the production line open, it is clear that the factory would be doomed without Titan and Olympian.
The Bristol plant, like Workington, was a Bus Manufacturers Holdings factory owned jointly until last year by Leyland and the .National Bus Company. BMH lost £4m in 1981, but a Leyland spokesman explained that the effects of the closure are unlikely to appear in the company balance sheet as it does not break the Leyland Group's figures into Trucks, Bus, or Parts divisions, let alone into such detailed areas.
After November, Leyland Bus production will be concentrated on Leyland, Workington, Leeds (Charles Roe), and Lowestoft (Eastern Coach Works). Olympian bodybuilding at Leeds may well be transferred to Lowestoft if demand for the integral Royal Tiger builds up.
The Association of Metropolitan Authorities' public passenger transport sub-committee chairman Alex Waugh said this week: 'Present trends, together with the loss of new bus grants and the general economic position, may make it impossible for manufacturers to avoid further plant closures and reductions in their labour force."