Alstom: We have six weeks of work left, says rail firm boss

The boss of Derby-based train builder Alstom has told MPs the company only has six weeks worth of continuous manufacturing work left.

City council and business leaders have been in London on Wednesday to lobby Parliament about a lack of orders.

Alstom is consulting on hundreds of potential redundancies.

Managing director Nick Crossfield said: "In six weeks, we go from an annual output of 650 [rail] cars, employing 3,000 people, to zero."

Mr Crossfield was referring to the production of Aventra trains - used on the Elizabeth line and by Greater Anglia, South Western Railway, West Midlands Trains and c2c - which is due to stop by the end of January.

MPs were also told taxpayers' money is being spent developing HS2 trains despite speculation the order may be changed.

Mr Crossfield said "the meter is running" and work was continuing at the firm's factory in Derby to provide 54 HS2 trains based on £2bn worth of contracts issued two years ago.

He told the Commons' transport select committee on Wednesday "there is a conversation to come" about how the government's decision to axe HS2 north of Birmingham will affect which trains are required.

Potential redundancies are believed to number about 550 at its Derby site with 780 at-risk contractors.

Mr Crossfield told MPs train manufacturing in the city was at serious risk and clarity about future orders, including on HS2, was urgently needed.

"We finish the manufacturing of programmes at end of January - so in six weeks we go from an annual output of 650 cars employing 3,000 people to zero," he said.

"Today, I have the supply chain showing liquidation. My paint supplier has gone into insolvency, a major on-site supplier providing the wiring loom employing several hundred people... they've announced at the end of January it is done.

"The timing of these decisions is critical because if I don't get the clarity in the next six weeks - it all goes."

Mr Crossfield also warned the UK could end up with supplies coming instead from China, the Middle East and central and Eastern Europe in the future.

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