BAe closing Woodford, loss of 1,100 jobs

BAe closing Woodford, loss of 1,100 jobs

news.sky.com

Defence giant BAE Systems has confirmed it is to axe 1,100 jobs and close a site at Woodford in Cheshire.
BAE is planning to close the Woodford site at the end of 2012, on completion of the Nimrod MRA4 production contract, with the loss of 630 jobs.

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This is a little too close to home with Woodford being just 5 miles away. It seems the Black projects are eating at BAe's budget and there more than happy to transfer the new UAV testing ground over Yorkshire given the recent sightings.
A shame the company wasnt given ground to build the Eurofighter production line at Woodford, a vast number of workers around Woodford depend on BAe for jobs and chances are they'll be building Council Homes over the airfield after 2012 for them to be living in.
Would be intresting to hear what BAe are going to do with the underground hangars and bunkers they have there, I'd suspect they'd just fill the whole lot in anyway.

news.sky.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by ROBL240


It's no surprise to me. This began over ten years ago with the shrinking of the Milton Keynes support centre, and then its closure a few years ago to consolidate with Luton.

It's a shame, it was a fascinating place. But I have to say that everything was very dated.
They were still using equipment from the 1970's in the labs.

This used to be a massive company, but they failed to move with the times adequately. As I said, everything about the company was extremely dated, from the filing systems, to the calibration equipment. They seemed to just be "making do".

It really is a shame to see this company evaporating slowly. There were some remarkably intelligent people I met there. If we were at war tomorrow, I would want them developing the technology to defend our country.
And it used to be a great company to work for as far as I can tell. They actually used to support their staff in every way possible.

It is a worry to think of how our government is replacing such a resource, or if they are at all. Defence contractors should hold a national pride, and having one closing is not good for our own national defence.
If anything should deserve a bail out or is "too big to fail" it's a company like BAe. Screw the banks and corporations, our major defence contractor should take priority.

The government should now be doing everything possible to secure the future of BAe as a British company.

But everythings ok as Gordons finally going to admit that their will be 'cuts' today !

Lunatic !

reply to post by Jamesy_boy


I don't understand how anyone couldn't see this happening.

We are in such a state financially, it is inevitable that services would be cut. And now people are up in arms about it?

Just as in America, people refuse to accept the truth based on common sense, they seem to think some miracle will occur. And then when it doesn't and the government says "well, tough time ahead" everyone is acting surprised.

But, the first place to face cuts should be parliament.
Close all the secret little operations they have, fire all the pointless assistants and shut down all the needless government bodies.
Regional authorities need to reign in their staff and get rid of those not performing (and believe me there are thousands of them in make-believe departments creating work from thin air).

There are a million and one ways for local authorities to save billions of £, all they need is leadership from government to be forced into it. We could weather this storm quite nicely if they'd just leave people to live their lives instead of creating and running "initiatives" and pointless groups within regional governments in an effort to increase government and control the people further.