Standard-Triumph £10.5m expansion in Liverpool

BY GILES SMITH

Standard-Triumph announced last night further expansion plans for their new Liverpool body-finishing plant. The new extensions, covering a further 500,000 sq. ft., will cost £10.5m. and are part of a plan to double the company's labour force in Liverpool to more than 3,000. Expansion at the Speke Hall Road site has been brought in in two phases.

The total cost of the extensions is £200m. and will raise car production to between 175,000 and 200,000 units a year. Phase one, already partially operative, covers another 500,000 sq. ft., and provides body phosphating and priming facilities for up to 100,000 bodies and finish painting and trimming facilities for up to 50,000 bodies annually.

The total expansion plan is by far the largest to be announced since the British Leyland group, including Standard-Triumph, was formed in May last year. Officials at Liverpool are unwilling to discuss employment figures for the new phase until they have held talks with union leaders, but phase one will raise total employment in Liverpool to 3,000.

Cliff Swindle, director and general manager of Standard-Triumph International, said yesterday: "During the past two years the demand for Triumph cars has steadily increased and we look forward to the time when both phases of this new Liverpool plant are fully operative so that our. supply can keep pace with demand."