Stoke-on-Trent spared the Michelin axe

TYRE maker Michelin’s facility in Stoke-on-Trent has been spared as the firm announced the closure of its plant in Northern Ireland with the loss of 860 jobs.

Indeed Michelin said it would be modernising its facility at Stoke and increasing production at its plant in Dundee, investing £65m and creating 100 new jobs in the process.

In a statement the firm said: “As part of MTPLC’s plans to maintain its position as a key part of Michelin operations in Europe, it is announcing investments of £65 million at its Dundee and Stoke-on-Trent sites.

“Dundee will benefit from a five-year investment of more than £52 million to transform it into a state-of-the-art factory.

“The investment will increase production by 30% through the installation of new tyre-building machines, enabling the production of larger tyres which are a growing segment of the market.

“Tyre curing capabilities will be increased with the installation of electric presses, the first large-scale industrialisation of this technology at a Michelin production site.

“A new 20,000 square metre warehouse will be built on site to accommodate this increased production.

“Following a modernisation project of the Stoke-on-Trent factory with a £21 million investment over the last few years, there will be an additional investment of £12 million in its production and logistics facilities.

“This will include a modernised distribution centre of 53,000 square metres in Stoke-on-Trent to serve all MTPLC customers, dealers and partners from a single shared logistics platform.

“This series of investments will lead to the creation of a total of more than 100 new jobs in Dundee and Stoke-on-Trent.”

But the Michelin tyre factory in Ballymena, County Antrim, is to close in 2017 with the loss of 860 jobs.

The firm said the Ballymena decision had been made due to the significant downturn in demand for truck tyres in Europe since the financial crisis of 2007.

Michelin said: “There is a strong need to reduce overcapacity and concentrate Michelin truck tyre production in larger, more competitive sites.

“Despite great efforts and progress being made in previous years, other European plants are still more competitive than Ballymena.”

The Unite union said it was “devastating news”.

The Ballymena factory produced one million tyres a year.

Redundancies there are expected to begin in May 2016 and the factory will shut down completely in 2017.