Ford jobs safe after Jaguar sale

Ford's Bridgend plant produces V8 engines for Jaguar

Jobs at Ford's Bridgend plant should be safe until 2012 after Indian company Tata agreed to use its engines as part of a deal to buy Jaguar and Land Rover.

Car giant Ford is selling its luxury UK-based car brands to Tata for £1bn, it has been confirmed.

As part of the deal, Tata will buy engines and other parts from Ford for at least another four years.

Approximately 2,000 people are employed at the Bridgend plant, building V8 engines for Jaguar, among other cars.

The plant is on course to produce 800,000 petrol engines this year.

Professor Garel Rhys, director of the centre for automotive industry research at Cardiff University, said he believed Ford would not have sold to any company which would cut jobs.

"Tata have agreed to abide by the five-year plan that Ford had put down and Ford was making sure that whoever bought these companies would actually act to the degree of stewardship," he said.

The plant in Bridgend is doing a good job, it's producing good engines, so there's no reason for them to want to change Kath Ringwald, University of Glamorgan

"They were not going to sell to anybody who they felt would shut plants because Ford wants to maintain its reputation. Ford hasn't gone from the UK after all."

Kath Ringwald, of the University of Glamorgan business school, said there was no reason for Tata not to use the engines produced in Bridgend.

"It's important for Bridgend and for the industry in the UK as a whole and I think again Tata have taken this approach very sensibly," she said.

"The plant in Bridgend is doing a good job, it's producing good engines, so there's no reason for them to want to change."

But she said it was difficult to predict what the future held after 2012.

"Of course, they're going to have to develop an environmentally-friendly engine," she said.

"Everyone's looking for the sustainability angle so beyond 2012 it's difficult to predict what the technology will be and who will be leading that."

Tata accounts for more than half of the sub-continent's truck market and has about 20% of India's car market.

The lengthy sale process started last June when Ford announced its intention to sell the Jaguar and Land Rover companies as a package.

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