Standard-Triumph's Merseyside fans

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LIVERPOOL, FEB. 9

It was announced at Speke, Liverpool, today that the Standard-Triumph Group are to spend £11m. on new works on Merseyside. The scheme, part of an £18m. expansion, embraces a three-year plan under which 4,500 will be employed at Speke.

£150M. Car Plans The £18m. expansion programme announced yesterday by Standard- Triumph International raises the total planned capital expenditure of the British motor industry to over £150m. Ford and B.M.C. are each proposing to spend £50m., Rootes earlier stated its intention to spend a further £10m. and Vauxhall is intending to spend £30m. The new plants which Ford, B.M.C., and Standard-Triumph are to build will provide some 23,000 jobs between them. So far Merseyside has attracted the lion's share of new investment and the three development schemes of Ford, Standard- Triumph and B.M.C in that area are expected to provide employment for some 14,000 even in the initial stages so that they will transform the employment position, traditionally below average, of the Liverpool area.

Only the British Motor Corporation has as yet given the amount and the form of Government aid that it will receive. In this case the three new factories in Wales, Scotland, and Merseyside are to be built for it at a cost of £9,5O.000 on an amortization basis by the Board of Trade. What form the aid given to the other companies will take is not yet known, but it will presumably follow the same pattern. The interesting point at present is the way in which Merseyside has gained so much of the new employment, presumably because it is the most convenient "high unemployment " area.