Train manufacturer Bombardier has said it will cut over 1,400 jobs at its site in Derby after missing out on the £1.4bn Thameslink contract.
The government announced last month that the consortium led by Siemens had beaten Bombardier Transportation’s consortium to be preferred bidder for the 1,200 new carriage contract on the Thameslink route.
The union Unite has branded the government’s decision to award a contract to build new train carriages to a ‘German-led consortium’ over Derby-based Bombardier as a ‘disgraceful decision which is a hammer blow for the Derby area’.
Teresa Villiers, Minister of State for Transport said:
“I fully appreciate that this will cause huge disappointment in Derby, where Bombardier would have liked to have been preferred bidder, but we are bound by EU procurement rules and, after a very careful assessment, Siemens had come up with the best deal.”
Bombardier said they did not have enough work to keep the facility in Derby operating at current levels.
It plans to cut 446 permanent jobs and 983 contract staff, over 3,000 people are employed there currently.
“The culmination and successful delivery of these projects and the loss of the Thameslink contract, which would have secured workload at this site, means that it is inevitable that we must adjust capacity in line with economic reality,” said Francis Paonessa of Bombardier in the UK on Tuesday.
“We regret this outcome but without new orders we cannot maintain the current level of employment and activity at Derby.”
There are many unused rail tracks around the country, sidings, obsolete railway stations, and a need for affordable homes. Would it be possible to keep the Derby site going by rethinking carrriages beyond just transport from A to B. Classrooms, workplaces and easily extendable homes that could offer job mobility to workforces such as builders.