Norton motorbike production to stay in East Midlands after £16m takeover

The new Indian owner of Norton Motorcyles has said there are no plans to move production of the marque from its Castle Donington base.

TVS Motors paid £16m last week to buy Norton out of administration after a tortuous two-and-a-half months when details emerged weekly of the alleged mismanagement of the firm by its previous owners, including disputes over pension schemes run by the firm.

Now, reports in Indian trade publication carandbike say that TVS joint managing director Sudarshan Venu will continue to make Norton motorbikes at Castle Donington in the short term – and move to another location nearby in the near future.

He told carandbike: “We’re taking over all the employees except a few, which is basically the old management, who we’re not taking over. The strong design team and assembly team is coming over to us, and we will look to leverage their strength and work with them to deliver more bikes of this storied brand. In Europe the location is in Derby, in Donington Hall. We will move to another new location very soon, in the same region. The idea is to continue with this very talented team to get the brand back to its original glory, and take it into the future.”

He added: “See, right now, if you see, the team at Norton in UK is very capable. They are manufacturing the bikes really well. And we’ll look to strengthen that as we cater to the global market.”

The move would be good news for Norton’s employees who have been in limbo since the company slumped into administration at the end of January.