Honda's Swindon plant to close for two months

11:56am Friday 21st November 2008

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Car firm Honda is to halt production at its UK plant for two months next year in the wake of the "dramatic change" in the global market, the firm announced today.

The plant at Swindon will not produce any cars next February and March, although none of the 4,800 workers will be laid off.

The Japanese firm is the latest carmaker to scale back production because of the economic downturn.

The news follows a decision to close BMW’s Cowley Mini plant this weekend and for an extended period during the Christmas break.

Honda had already planned to have 13 non-production days at Swindon next February but has decided to extend the cutback and will also scale back carmaking at two plants in Japan and the United States.

A company spokesman said there would no redundancies at Swindon and workers would still be paid. The plant produces the Civic and CR-V models and is due to start production of the small car Jazz next autumn.

The spokesman said Honda wanted to keep the workforce intact in readiness for the new car.

The company said in a statement: "Honda today announced a plan to adjust automobile production at its UK factory in Swindon for the current fiscal year in response to a dramatic change in the global automobile market.

"In addition to 32,000 units production adjustment between December 2008 and March 2009 that had previously been announced, production at Honda of the UK Manufacturing Ltd (HUM) will be further adjusted by 21,000 units.

"This will be achieved by suspending production for 29 days during the months of February and March 2009, combined with 13 non-production days previously planned in this period. Therefore HUM will stop all vehicle production in February and March 2009. There are no plans for redundancies."

Honda said it was reducing car production at Swindon in the current financial year from an originally announced 228,000 units to 175,000 units.