Agency offers cash in bid to save Rolls Royce plant

Nov 27 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

THE region’s regeneration agency is willing to contribute a “significant” amount of money towards a new site for Merseyside’s doomed Rolls Royce factory, the Daily Post can reveal.

The North West Development Agency and Sefton Council are investigating moving the Dunnings Bridge Road site in Bootle to a cheaper location in the area to help secure the 220 jobs at the factory.

It is understood that the NWDA has conditionally offered a seven figure sum to help rescue the factory.

Last night Unite union leader Debbie Brannan revealed Rolls Royce pays £1.7m a year rent at the site, where turbines for the oil and gas industries are made.

The upkeep and rent of the decaying building are understood to be factors which have led Rolls Royce to want to shift production to Ohio, USA, where according to Unite the company pays a peppercorn rent of $1 (50p) a year.

When the company started formal 90-day consultation on closing the site at the beginning of the month workers told that Daily Post that the roof of the factory leaked.

Last night a spokesman for Rolls Royce said the company did not want to comment on any details while the consultation was ongoing.

A crunch meeting is due to take place on Thursday between the NWDA, Sefton Council and the company.

Mrs Brannan had been under the impression the union would go to the meeting, but she said that on Friday she was told the union was not invited.

According to Sefton Council documents, one of the sticking points at the moment is failure by the company and the union to agree more flexible working arrangements.

Rolls Royce has previously said that high production costs in the UK, compared to the USA, meant the Bootle factory was no longer viable.

That was combined with the current high dollar-to-pound exchange rate, and what managers described as “fluctuating workloads”.

Last night Mrs Brannan said: “If it’s about flexibility then we can hammer that out, we are willing to talk about it.”

She said the union was willing to look at measures like annualised hours, but it was not willing to save the plant at any cost with workers effectively forced to take massive pay cuts.

Rolls Royce wants to begin a phased closure of the site from June next year to March, 2009.

Cllr Ian Maher, regeneration leader for Sefton, said: “We are doing our damndest to facilitate Rolls Royce staying in the area.”

He said he could not comment on where alternative locations were, but that if plans came to fruition the factory would remain in Sefton. Steve Broomhead, chief executive of the NWDA, said: “We are continuing to have a dialogue about the possibility of another site and have worked hard to see if we can secure production facilities.”

He said the level of funding from the NWDA was yet to be discussed as talks were in the “first stage”.

But he added: “I think we are hearing strong arguments, but Rolls Royce have been quite clear that they want to cease production.

“I don’t know whether I am optimistic or not.”

davidbartlett